What do I do with mail for people who have moved?

We just moved to a new house and have a couple of pieces of mail for the former tenants. One is from the water company and one is from the council finance department, so they seem like they are important. Both have return addresses on the back.

In the States, I would just write "Moved - Return to Sender" next to the address and stick the envelope in a letter box.

What is the procedure for this in the UK?

We periodically get mail for the previous tenant of our flat (my husband has lived in this flat for 6 years now!) I just write 'Not at this Address - Return to Sender' and drop it in the post box.

Thanks.

We periodically get mail for the previous tenant of our flat (my husband has lived in this flat for 6 years now!) I just write 'Not at this Address - Return to Sender' and drop it in the post box.

I've done this before with some mail from a previous resident and 2 days later I got the same letter posted back to me! All I could do was laugh. Still don't know if that was a 'slipped threw the cracks' one time only thing or not.

We stopped getting mail at least the important looking ones. We still get Tesco and Boots junk for them but I just toss it.

My husband does the same thing WebyJ does.

Although when a spam letter was addressed "To The Owners" I wanted to write "No one by that name at this address, return to sender" but he wouldn't let me..

i find its quite hard to do it with certain companies.We keep getting baliff letters for the previous occupant. I tracked down the companies number by googling the senders information on the envelope. The guy there told me to open the letter and give him the details on the letter. I told him I thought it was against the law to open someone elses post, but he insisted that i open it. so i did and gave him the guys referance number and etc on the letter. I was then informed that if I wanted the letters to stop and to avoid the baliff coming i had to send my boyfriends lease to show that we live there now and not the other guy. i refused to and told him its not our job to do that and he should do a credit check on the guy to find out where he is living now. we are still getting letters. im  not gonna feel sorry for the baliff if he comes to the door and my boyfriend has a go at him

You can put a wrongly delivered letter "back in the post" by posting it in a pillar box or handing it to a postman or a member of staff at a Post Office or delivery office. You should strike throught the address (cross it out) and write "Gone Away" if you know that they used to live there, or "Unknown" if you never heard of them. Royal Mail will attach a sticker (see image). What you write will help Royal Mail to decide which box to check. Only "addressee has gone away" or "addressee unknown" will be relevant here as the other boxes are for items which cannot be delivered at all. "Not called for" is used for items where a card has been left and nobody has called at the delivery office to collect it (mainly parcels and recorded / special delivery items). If the return address is not somewhere on the outside of the item it will go to the Returned Letter Office to be opened and if there is a sender's address inside it will be placed in a Royal Mail envelope and sent back, unless it's a newspaper, magazine or advertising in which case it will be disposed of.

If you've got their address, you can simply write "please forward to: ....." on the envelope and stick it back in the box.  I do this when our landlord gets post at our address (they used to live here).

If you've got their address, you can simply write "please forward to: ....." on the envelope and stick it back in the box.  I do this when our landlord gets post at our address (they used to live here).

Make sure not to open it and seal it up again, because in that case Royal Mail will treat it as a newly posted item and demand penalty plus postage from the eventual addressee