what happens if you move to a new house but dont tell anyone who you have debt with?

[kerryk]

i.e you have loads on store cards/credit cards then bugger of to a new address and dont bother to let them know?

am only asking because i am moving to a new house soon and have heard that the previous owners have done this.

i have already phoned up british gas and next directory (my only catalogue!) and both of them have asked if i have a forwarding address for the previous occupents (i dont). i dread to think how many others there is.

what will i do with any mail that comes through, do i bin it or stick it back in the post box?

someone has said since i live in scotland i wont have to worry about bailiffs turning up but i have no idea if this is right. i dont want to have to be sorting out someone elses mess for them.

ravenAK - Debt collectors are people trying to do a job, I was explaining the process of what happens, what exactly is with the ?

They can turn up but have to leave when you tell them to go, they have no power to do anything at all.

That applies to sheriff officers or bailiffs in Scotland.

6months on we are stll getting previous tennt letters and bills. getting v v annoying now.
we did an exchange so know where they are.

I do know quite a bit about how debt collectors operate!

The would be because of the illegal bullying, intimidation & sharp practice which is rife within a nasty little industry.

Tamarto's right (well, mostly). You're unlikely to find a bailiff who'll admit to it, though, when they're trying to get a foot wedged in the door so they can legally break & enter later.

The person we got our house from didn't tell anyone his new address and we got loads of mail its been two year now. I rang the companies involved if I thought it was needed and they mostly asked me to open the letter to get account details etc for them - Some letters were opened in error HONEST! and one of them was from his solictor and detailed his new address on one sheet but still sent it to the old one so now forward them on

kerryk - we had this at our old house and we did get some quite threatening phone calls from debt collectors. In the end we told them that we had reported them to the police for harassment and would be referring any further contact directly to the police. They left us alone after that!

We have had this in the past, I knew the new address of the previous people and just wrote on the front of the letters "not known at this address, try and put them back in the post box.

If you can provide a forwarding address then do because it stops the mail coming to your house.

If you haven't got an actual forwarding address but rent the property give them the name of the letting agents and if you bought it, the details of their solicitors.

Return the mail but with the details of where to try (work, parents) anywhere but your house.

I too have been a debt collector. One practice we used to operate was to write to the next door neighbours either side and I did have one man ring up and laugh his socks off that the person had left owing a lot of money. That was until I told him he would be paying indirectly as his electricity tariff was based on the amount of debt we couldn't collect. He soon coughed up his new address.

Don't bin the letters, if there is no return address then personally I would open it and contact the company otherwise you will just get more and more letters and maybe a visit.

This is a very old message, but I think we may know the same person..if still around, let's compare details

Or anybody else who has similar rubbish experiences, why not share them!!

The situation I was posting about is still live and two other people have contacted me via MN as a result of this thread, about issues with the tenant.

I would say one thing to anyone letting a property - do not just go on your letting agent's enquiries and official checks, consider doing your own checks, meeting the person, asking to see identity documents such as a passport, and so on. Even Google can tell you a lot of what you need to know these days, such as criminal convictions via the magistrate's court, where someone has been living prior to applying to rent your property, and so on. It seems agent checks do not always pick up things like this, so I would not advise relying on them.

I have letters from an old tenant trouble is she is in prison so couldn't tell anyone she moved out as never got the chance. Its been nearly 2 years now and still get random things through,was difficult getting utility bills and BT in our names as she hadn't told them she had moved!

We've moved twice and both times the house has been targeted by a scammer who didn't live there before us. I think they watch land registry listings in the hope of finding an empty property. The more recent one was more sinister as he managed to get himself onto the electoral roll, the council said he must either work for the Royal Mail or have a contact there.

For the first year I got maybe 2-3 letters from debt collection agencies per month. I opened them all, explained and they immediately removed the debt. Only one agency in all that time quibbled, wanting me to send proof of my ID - I refused and they went away.Does make me think that if the debt was legitimately mine, would they take it off their books if I rang up and denied living there! After a year or so the numbers dropped significantly. I also returned all non-debt collection agency mail and wrote on the envelope "not living here - has never lived here - attempted postal fraud. Royal Mail and council aware" and rung up the Royal Mail to stop him having his post diverted to us from another address which he was doing.

It's illegal to open someone else's post- only if you do so with malicious intent (and let's face it even if you do what are the chances of prosecution?) simply opening it to find a return address, or indeed doing so in error is perfectly legal and sensible in these cases.

I can understand why people in awful debt don't leave a forwarding address- quite frankly why would you? phone the debt collectors and let them know where they can chase you for the debt you can't pay?

Sorry posted too soon- to OP simply return to sender, tell anyone who comes to the door- do not supply ID or offer them any assistance which involves you proving you are not them. They don't care who pays the debt and will have a go at intimidating you into paying it by telling you they can't leave you alone or your credit rating will be affected. Lies!

Apologises, that should say it's not illegal to open someone else's post

We opened a letter after receiving what looked like the same one every month for 18 months despite returning to sender. It was threatening debt collection. We rang the company and haven't received any since but they said they ignore returned letters as people do that to ignore the debt! They were going to check the electoral roll to find the people. Not sure why they couldn't do that when they got returned letters instead of just carrying on sending them!

The bloke who lived in our house before us pissed off owing thousands to various people, utilities, DWP, his ex wife. We initially re posted the letters with "return to sender" on. After a while of them keeping coming we opened some and they were for court dates for various things and debt collectors. I contacted our landlady as I vaguely remembered her saying he worked for her husband. He did and was somehow contacted but still ignored the letters (LL had told him to come and pick them all up). I called the debt collection companies when they were threatening to come to the house. They said that I would have to prove my identity and send them utility bills and bank statements. I informed them that I most certainly did not ! In the end the feckless one was contacted and arranged to pick the post up, at the last minute he requested that we left it all on the door step, probably so he didn't have to face us!