Mail addressed to former owners

Sorry, that should read, Don’t have a forwarding address for the previous owner.

I’m blaming getting shampoo in my eyes in the shower this morning for posting gobbledygook! ?

I have the same problem. I moved four months ago and don’t have a previous address for the last owner so I just write, ‘No longer at this address’ and pop it in the nearest post box which thankfully is on Peggy’s walking route.

The cheek of some people. Expecting new owners of their home to act as their personal postie. Agree with posters on here, tell them it’s their responsibility and put the Mail back in the post box with return to sender on. It’s up to them to chase an important letter, not you. Believe it’s illegal to destroy someone else post.

When I was renting I used to gather all the mail that came for former tenants, shove it into a large manilla envelope and post it through the LL's door once every few weeks.

After 6 months I just binned it.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

I would be telling them I don't work for Royal Mail and it's not my job. They take responsibility for their own mail. If they have a problem, they sort it. After a year I would not be sorting their mail. It would be in the postbox with a ' not at this address' on it.

I would have texted back "I am not your postal depot" and then blocked their number.

All subsequest mail would be put back into the post marked "gone away" at a time when it suited me.

Over the christmas period I got 4 wrongly addressed mail pieces. 2 Royal Mail and 2 My Hermes. I gave the RM ones to the postie. The other two were for other addresses on my estate but I am mobility impaired. They had to wait a week until a relative came to visit and was willing to drop them off on his way home.

We moved here to a small hamlet (20 houses) 9 years ago. The previous owner moved a couple of miles away, but didn’t leave a forwarding address, and asked me to give any mail to a neighbour she was in contact with, I did for a year then binned it, including HMRC, letters addressed to her adult son.

Just before last Christmas a parcel was delivered here for her, I didn’t accept it and the courier took it back. 2 weeks later another neighbour came to ask me if I had the parcel, apparently previous owner had text this neighbour (who had had no contact with previous owner for over 8 years) asking her to check if I’d got it.

We also get regular phone calls asking for “Maureen” (not previous owner of house, but previous owner of phone number), including a call from the hospital to say her husband was ready for her to collect (!), several phone calls from her dentist, optician, solicitor and GP!

People are unbelievable!

For at least 5 years after we moved we got post ,not for the previous occupant but the one prior to that. As a relation lived nearby I put it in their post box when I passed.
When one obviously from a hospital came, I thought I should take it round, I got no thanks from the reli. Then an official-looking letter came from abroad. I gave in and took it around. A few days later the chap came and said thank you it had contained a cheque for a considerable amount.
I told him I would be putting all post in future back in the Post box with unknown at this address. We got no more post for them.
Some people are lazy just text them and say all post will be going back in the Post box with unknown on it.

Simply write Unknown at this address. Return to Sender. on the front of the envelope and put it in a post box when you next are going out anyway.

If they have the nerve to contact you again, tell them that you have no intention of putting yourself out to forward mail to them any longer. It cannot take them more than a couple of minutes to e-mail their bank etc and remind them of the change of address.

We’re in our house since 2003. We still get an annual Xmas card for owner two before us. Never a return address but it’s a Canadian postage stamp. I did start opening them to see if there were ever any contact details. Same people are getting various renewals through the years and things from companies house.

I moved 3 months ago and paid for a years redirection service. I have a couple of monthly magazine subscriptions which went to my previous address . My buyer let me know and I arranged to pick them up apologised and phoned the companies to make sure they had the new address. Seems ok now but definitely the redirection service doesn’t always work despite your best intentions.

I do think their response was very entitled though

We had a run of mail from various insurance companies addressed to Eastern-European-sounding names at our address, but as we know who has lived here since 1902 we knew they were scam letters. (It is the insurance companies who are scammed, not us.) We put them back in the post marked "Never lived at this address", but they kept coming. Once I opened one and phoned the company involved, and that one stopped sending anything.

Sometimes the only thing you can do with mail like this is put it in another envelope, don't put a stamp on it, and send it back to the organisation which sent it. At least it means somebody might have to pay some attention.

We have been in our house over twenty years we still get mail for previous owners. I just keep putting back in post box with NOT AT THIS ADDRESS written in red felt tip.

I have lived in this house for over 6 years now and still get bank statements, mobile phone bills, building society statement etc. addressed to the previous owners. They did not leave a forwarding address, so I spent the next 6 months marking the envelopes as "not known at this address" and re-posting them. Nothing has changed so now I just put them straight in the bin. With my own mail absolutely nothing goes into my bin with my name and address on it - it's either shredded or the details obliterated with a black marker. But I don't bother with their mail.

When I first moved into this house I was renting. The CF former tenant had gone bankrupt. They hand delivered a letter asking me to forward to them a cheque they were expecting for a large amount. They wanted to hide it from their trustee in bankruptcy. My solicitor advised me to return it. Unfortunately there was no return address so I just sent it to the bank with a covering note.

I had a series of debt collectors harassing me for their debts.

I used to collect all their non forwarded mail and drop it through the landlords door once a week (she lived nearby) for her to deal with. After a few months I simply binned it.

I also bin anything addressed to "the occupier". If a company cannot be bothered to find out my name and title to address me then its probably only junk mail.

This will be our 10th year in this house and we still get mail delivered for the previous owners! Not junk mail, catalogues etc but letters from HMRC, the NHS, possibly important stuff. We used to send it on to them, and after telephoning they said they'd sort it out. But after five years it was still coming so we wrote 'no longer at this address return to sender' and popped it back in the postbox. Now we just bin it. Enough is enough. We, and they, had our mail redirected for 12 months and I think we only had 2 items forwarded to us by the people who bought our house.

I saved the previous owner's mail for six months when I moved here. She did come and collect. I've now lived here about 18 years and still receive the occasional letter addressed to her, which goes straight into recycling.

I sold my house in May 2020 and moved into a rental, so could only pay for redirection to my new bungalow from there.

I have just received a Christmas card with my old house address scribbled out - so kind of my old post lady to do that!

We had trouble because the previous occupant did not inform dvla of change of address so we had parking fines etc persistently sent to us.
She insisted she had told dvla but still they came.
In the end local post man knew her new address and I xent them there.
Soon stopped.

The other problem can be that even if you inform a company of your new address, they do not always do anything about it.

For 5 or 6 years after DS moved away after a short time living with us an insurance company kept sending mail to our address, even though he informed them every year of his new address.

Eventually I sent the annual letter back saying 'moved away 5 years ago. He has informed you of his new address several times. Send to correct address. You have it'. I did not write the new address, which meant they had to search the files to find it. They did, and thereafter used it.

A variation on this situation - for several years my father-in-law received a Christmas card clearly intended for a neighbour but mistakenly addressed to his house number. The neighbour had moved away, we knew not where.

After he died, a card came again. It provided clues as to the senders - the village and their first names. A bit of detective work gave me the email of one of the local churchwardens. I contacted her and asked if she knew of a couple with those names. I asked if she would explain what had happened if she could find the people and, bless her, she did. In due course I got a 'thank you'.

They knew they were getting a letter from the bank but still hadn’t changed the address! And now they say there is another one expected!

They’re not only taking the Mickey, they’re also so rude!!! They’ve had 5 months to let the bank know their new address!!

I have just changed the address on my DGS’s museum pass. He only lives next door to where he was before and everyone knows everyone else but this thread has made me pull up my socks.

Well, on a slightly different note I’m having a battle with Yodel today, who swear blind they handed over a parcel at lunchtime. No they didn’t. We were both home all day. Seething!