Really Messy Muddle - help needed please

Good for you!

Thank you all for great help, we're putting a stop to it now.

When I moved here I returned to sender until a county court summons arrived. I opened that on the grounds that it was very important that they knew that they'd got the wrong address. I phoned the number on the letter and explained the situation. That was the last I heard. Creditors don't want to waste their money chasing up debts at the wrong address.

Fumanchu, I think you've been given some very good advice here. Just want to say that at 45 ds knows how he wants to live. NOT your and dh's responsibility to caution or advise him. It's normal to still want to guide your son, but please try to let go of that feeling. He's not going to listen, anyway. Please just protect yourselves. Let him live his life his (foolish) way and deal with the consequences.

Some years ago, when working as a Home visitor for a charity I helped an elderly man with the same problem.

I prepared a simple letter stating that, while this gentleman's son had lived at this address in the past he had not lived there for sometime but was still using it as an accommodation address. His last known address was (give the address he is living at). Please send all further correspondence and bills to that address. Open all the mail for your son that comes to your house and send it back to the sender with a signed copy of this letter.

My client did this and quickly ceased to receive this mail. With one exception, Lloyds bank. In the end we wrote to the chairman to complain and that finally stopped them.

Do not accept or sign for any mail or documents for him sent to your address. No matter how pressing or pushy the deliverer may try to be. Just say no and shut the door.

You could put a note on your credit files to say 'Our son John Smith lived with us until (give date) but has not lived with us since that date, although he continues to give our address when seeking credit. He can no longer be contacted through this address.

The only circumstance that you could be considered as liable for his debts is if you had signed a guarantee form for any loan he obtained or credit he was seeking. From your post I think it is very unlikely you have done that.

grandtanteJE65 slightly off main topic but my father recently (4 months ago) passed away - when we registered his death the registrar asked if we wanted to register the address with Royal Mail to stop junk mail etc - must say it worked very little mail goes to the house now. They can do so much in one go cancelling everything - takes a lot of hassle out of what is a bad time anyway

No crisssyh I stopped putting him on the voters roll a few years ago. Thankfully!

I will do this tomorrow, damage limitation! Thankyou to Grannyknot.
I have also booked a callback from the Scottish debt advice people who deal with Trust Deeds; I want to ask them if he could be doing this using our address without our knowledge.
He phoned today asking if a letter had come and when I started asking if he was in trouble with debt etc he quickly started coughing and pretended he had lost his voice!! So that sort of proves it doesn't it

I agree with the others try the citizens advice or one of the links that have been posted for you. I hope you get it sorted out soon.

Always check your position with the credit reference agencies regardless of your son. Everyone can now do that free.

You are not liable for his finances. Do not accept recorded delivery (which would be addressed to him anyway). When he next visits you should find out what is happening and then if you wish tell him to have his mail directed elsewhere. After that you could use RTS but it will depend upon what discussion you have with him.

Receiving mail like that is similar to a post box.

It was 20 years ago, but a friend had the bailiffs call because their son, who was at university, had debts which they knew nothing about. Do you put your son living at your address when you fill in the Electoral Roll Form every year as that may make a difference.

I don"t think you can be held responsible these days unless you are a guarantor for anything he"s bought. In the past I think the rules were different. For your own peace of mind check with the Citizens Advice.

To cut a very long and distressing story short, we were almost invaded by bailiffs because my step-son had given our address as his living address when he went on an extended trip to Australia. It turned out he owed so much money to so many people, and it took a long time to persuade the bank that his debts were not ours. It was all made worse by the fact that SS had returned to the UK and not told us. He continued to run up debts and we continued to receive his mail, even though we returned every single letter to the sender with "Does not live at this address."

Eventually, after a lot of correspondence, the bank accepted that we had been used and took our names off the naughty list. Needless to say, we have not seen SS since, and have no wish to.

I thought credit rating problems were attached to the house

You cannot be held liable for his debts if the accounts are in his name. However, wise to check your credit rating to see if your address is flagged up for any reason. We had this situation at one point with a former owner of our house who had run up incredible debts and card bills and she hadn't changed her address. It simply involved our writing to the credit agency and explaining; presumably they then check electoral rolls and so on and we had a letter confirming that all was clear.

I agree that you need to contact the 3 main Credit Reference Agencies and put a notice of disassociation on their records, just for your own peace of mind. Then forget about it.

fumanchu - can I please emphasise and reiterate what Gillybob has said - this is really, really important. By doing this you can protect yourself and save a lot of hassle.
We did the same when our son went through a silly phase after he left University. By the time we had given him £5,000 we had had enough. We wrote to all the credit agencies and discovered that he had been taking out loans against our address so we had no choice but to build a virtual brick credit wall.
He did sort himself out and is now aged 41, married with two lovely children and running his own business. He has turned into a pillar of the community!
A further point is that if you disassociate his name with your address, he may not be able to get any more credit as it will be a warning sign to potential lenders. You may feel a bit disloyal and I do sympathise but you do not deserve this. The only person who can protect you is yourself. Please, please take action on Monday as Gillybob suggests. In the long run you may well be helping him far more than you realise at present.

If you feel it is worth the bother you could either phone or e-mail the firms that send mail to your son at your address and explain that he does not live at the address he has given them.

I say if you feel it is worth it, because I experienced after my mother's death when we kept on getting mail for her, even after the estate was wound up that a lot of firms do not bother to update their data base with this kind of information.

As far as I know it is not illegal in any country to allow someone to have their post sent to your address, but it is a felony to open their mail, unless you have their permission to do so.

I am glad I don't live in the UK if having someone's mail sent to your address renders you liable for their debts! Do take legal advice about that, it could save you a lot of trouble.

my DD was advised to write "return to sender... not at this address" eventually she got letters addressed to "the occupier" which she opened which asked if she knew of the correct/forwarding address ( she didn't ) of her ex.

No point in redirecting mail . The people who are sending it are the ones that need the "correct" address . I went through this only a couple of years back with my DD's ex who ran up £thousands of debt and then Effectively disappeared leaving the debts st my DD's address . She even had bailiffs visits etc. Thankfully all sorted now though but it was a horrible time.

I would return the mail to sender as not known at this address. If they ring you tell them your son doesn't live there and hasn't for some years. Explain he never bothered changing his address and give them his addy. If you don't want to give them the addy then just say he has never given you his full addy. They will track him down and go after him. They will. It's very difficult to hide now with technology

Wow Grannyknot how useful is all that information to fumanchu!
fumanchu - I hope you get this problem sorted out. My best wishes to you.

Great help, many thanks ladies. I might ask at the Post Office yes, I do know where he is and have to continually send his mail on with no thanks. Have saved all those links to credit companies ty.
So thankful that we haven't ever been in a mess like this, it's so much worry!!

If you know his address could you pay the post office to redirect his mail?