Previous owner has mortgage on our house?

[WhatWouldOliviaPopeDo]

We moved into our new house late last year and today I accidentally opened a letter meant for the previous owners because I wasn't paying attention when I went through the pile of mail. To my shock, the letter was confirming a new mortgage for the previous owner and gives details of payments, account number etc. It doesn't state an address for the mortgage - but was sent to ours and the letter is dated Jan 26 2018. Could it just be a mistake that it's been sent to their previous address because they haven't completed yet? (They sold our house first to be chain free.) The first payment is due 5 March. I think I should call the mortgage company to clarify, but my DH thinks we should speak to our solicitor first. Either way, I'm going to have to say I accidentally opened the letter. WWYD?

First call should be to your solicitor. Completion can't take place until the seller's mortgage on the house you're buying has been discharged. I'm sure this is just a correspondence address mix up by the mortgage company, because if it's not it's quite supreme negligence on your solicitor's part...

That sounds quite worrying - call your solicitor

Passthecreme The letter is confirming a new mortgage arrangement, so it's not even an old outstanding one. I will call our solicitors first thing and hopefully it is just an admin error. I've just checked the Land Registry's website and we are confirmed as the owners now, so that's something. Really concerning though!

That honestly sounds like an error. Our mortgage company sent letters to our old address multiple times, luckily we were on top of them. —if it’s NatWest i’m not surprised—

I’ve also had someone’s car insurance policy details arrive on my doorstep.

Call them up, if you have a reference on that letter, they’ll easily put you right as to whether it needs to go further. I’m sure they’ll be just as concerned if it is a mortgage on your property!

I hope it is a mistake - there is such a thing as mortgage fraud done like this. Set a land registry alert on your property as well as checking.

Biscuiting, if I call them up, won't they be angry I opened the letter, even though it was a genuine mistake? We're getting so much mail for them still because they won't set up a post redirect, stingy sods that I've been returning to sender, but this one slipped through.

I opened something recently because I was worried about identity fraud. You obviously have a reason for concern here. Don't give the post opening issue another thought.

They won’t be mad! They’ll be more concerned that there is fraud going on and will be keen to take action if so. Also for data protection they’ll want to be making sure the addressee is receiving the correct information.

It’s probably the mortgage for the new house they are buying.

As you say, all the rest of their post is coming to you...

Have you not got a forwarding address for them?

An admin error and the old address. Surely more likely than fraud, them still owning the property etc.

OP, you do have the updated title deeds to your house don't you? If you look under the title Charges Register, there should only be a charge listed there for your own mortgage (if you have one obviously). If there are two charges (i.e. the previous owner's charge wasn't removed from the title), then contact your conveyancing solicitor so that they can contact the vendors solicitor to sort out. More likely, this is a new mortgage for the new property they are buying - perhaps they didn't update their address with their mortgage broker.

More than likely they've changed their him address with the bank, but not their correspondence address. I wouldn't be worried, but I would get in touch with them and your solicitor.

Ffs, autocorrect. HOME address.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Spickle, we do have the title deeds and it looks like we're the only ones listed on it, phew! Going to call the mortgage company in question and say we opened it because we've been concerned about dodgy letters arriving and now we're really worried. Will update later!

Update As many of you predicted, it does appear to be an admin error – the broker dealing with the new mortgage (which, they confirmed, is for a completely different address to ours) has erroneously listed our address as the correspondence one. Mortgage company is sorting it out now, so all good. Thanks for talking sense, Mumsnetters!

Re their post - if you are getting so much post, rather than return to sender, send it to their solicitors. If there’s no change, put in an unstamped envelope. The solicitor will be forced to make a payment and I promise you they will be all over their clients to claim it back and get them to set up a redirect!

machine that is genius!

Machine That is a brilliant idea! Thank you.

[Takes a bow]