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Previous tenant debt

1 reply

dillinger · 16/01/2008 09:54

We've lived in our house for almost a year now, it is council property. When we moved in there was quite a lot of post left here for the previous tenant, and as it wasnt addressed to us we didnt open any of it.

One day shortly after we moved in, we had a bailiff turn up, he was nice though and understood when we explained that the previous tenant hadnt lived here for a few months (by this point.)

We keep getting letters addressed to her, many I have 'returned to sender' writing on the front that she doesnt live here. A couple I have opened in order to telephone the various companies and inform them of that fact (I know maybe I shouldve opened them, maybe I shouldnt but we were getting a letter every fortnight or so, sometimes more and to be honest I was getting incredibly stressed about it.) The people I have spoken to have then asked me if she left a forwarding address etc but as its council I dont know where shes gone.

My partner has spoken to our housing officer who agreed that it wasnt fair on us etc etc and told us to pass on her details to the companies, so that she could then inform them of the previous tenants new address, and that she would remove this woman from the electoral roll (I think) as then when the debt agencies use it to check, they would see that she was no longer living here.

Things went quiet for a while, but today we've recieved another. How long do I have to keep doing this? I dont want to sound silly but it really stresses me sometimes and Im convinced that bailiffs will turn up and then might not believe that Im not her, etc.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

OP posts:
sophiewd · 16/01/2008 10:01

We had this on and off and finally stopped after about 18 months. There was one that demanded that we send proof of who we were to his company as he wouldn't believe that we were who we were, but most have been good and sympathetic. If anything comes up now we redirect to my brother, who officially own the property and sounds like your housing officer is quite happy to accept that role.

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