Former tenants who haven't told anybody that they've moved

A while back I posted about constantly getting mail for the former tenants of the house that we moved into in November.

Well, we are still getting mail from them.

We received their car tax disc. I marked the envelope "current address unknown" and stuck it in the letter box.

A couple of weeks or so later, they came to our house asking if we had their car tax disk.

I told them I'd stuck in the post.

Really! If they had paid their car tax, and were waiting for the disc to come in the post, you'd think they would have told the DVLA what their new address was.

Then today we received a notice from the council of who is registered to vote at the property.

Who is on the list?

Me
DH
Mrs. Former Tenant
Mr. Former Tenant

as though the four of us are all living together.

I'm going to call the council on Monday to try to straighten it out.

Have you been charged council tax based on 4 tenants or just 2? I imagine you have some kind of lease or mortgage showing it's just you two?

What a strange situation. I can't believe the DVLA have so much free time they can go to your house!

We received their car tax disc. I marked the envelope "current address unknown" and stuck it in the letter box.

A couple of weeks or so later, they came to our house asking if we had their car tax disk.

Wow, ballsy and irresponsible; that's a winning combination.  

Ah I misunderstood! I thought it was DVLA. It was the former tenants!! Holy crap. I think I would have said it didn't have my name on it and so I threw it away.. the rubbish bins are right over there.. lol But maybe I'm a bit evil.

I would totally be annoyed by that. The previous owners of our house had a business they ran from the house, so 4 years later we're still getting mail for their business. They've obviously signed themselves up to a load of catalogue crap and now we get it. I wouldn't mind it if it was stuff we were interested in but it's all turf and plant stuff.

But never had them come around asking for their tax disc. I would have told them off for that one.

We get a ton of crap for the previous tenants, who moved out in June 2009.  It's weekly pay stubs (he must have been a contract consultant of some sort) and bank statements and a few gifts from Amazon.  WTF?!

I refused delivery of the gifts, but the rest of the stuff keeps coming!

But coming around to ask for something?  That's crazy!

We still get junk mail for the people who owned our house before & haven't lived here for nearly 6 years.  Crap addressed to online businesses they had about their domain names expiring, flyers for furniture, baby/kid stuff, etc etc.  Also the guy was Greek so occasionally we get stuff in Greek from a Greek church somewhere - like Christmas cards & newsletter type stuff!

We've been in this flat since June and we're still receiving someone's prescriptions in the post!!  What I don't understand is how we receive mail for like, 10 different people, and this is a one bedroom place! 

I was too shocked when I saw them to give them a piece of my mind - also probably too polite. (We were actually coming back from somewhere in our car and found them standing on our front doorstep.)

It is just me and DH on the council tax bill, and I'm pretty sure that as long as there is more than one person on the property, you pay the same amount. There is a discount for a single person, but that's all.

This wouldn't affect our credit in any way would it? DH and I wouldn't suddenly become associated with these people because we were mistakenly listed on the electoral roll as living together at the same address?

By the way, the other day I got a letter regarding an insurance claim for someone who lived here even before they did. You'd think that if you were waiting for a company to give you money you would tell them where you had moved to.

Regarding credit status, request your reports from Equifax and Experian, contact Equifax and Experian (whichever one has the error) and the company involved in the error to correct them.

http://www.equifax.co.uk/
http://www.experian.co.uk/

We had that once.  There were some overseas students who had been living in our house previously, and they came to pick up their car tax disc after telling us it was being sent here because they forgot to change the address before paying it.  I asked them to please inform the DVLA of their new address.  They haven't been back, so I'm not overly worried about it.  But we get all sorts of crap for people who have lived here previously.  In the first few weeks of being in our house, people came around obviously expecting someone else to still be living here.  They were embarrassed and ran off.  I think that's the funniest thing we had happen.

In the first few weeks of being in our house, people came around obviously expecting someone else to still be living here.  They were embarrassed and ran off.  I think that's the funniest thing we had happen.

That reminds me...my BIL and his fiance moved into a new place and kept having weird men show up on their doorstep looking very surprised to see them when they answered the door.  It turns out, their flat used to be a BROTHEL!  The landlord never bothered to tell them!

Hi there,

I think I mentioned this in your last post/topic sweetpeach.

My rental apartment, same issue, previous tenants and names I'd never even heard of and allsorts of stupid junk coming through, as well as the 'WTF' why havent they changed this address yet stuff (bank statements, council forms, mobile bills/statements etc) all of which were current and being used.

I got fed up with constantly being handed a massive pile of post by my current tenants, so I thought sod it, I opened them all up, contacted various places and told them not to send any more junk.

upshot is I went to see my tenants the other day and was handed a single piece of junk mail only! my tenants are more than happy not having to store a barrage of crap.

If the people who were expecting their mail to magically come through or ever come back asking for stuff, tough they can get lost!

If I've commited an offence by opening someone elses mail - so be it, I can't imagine I'll get thrown int prison for it or for that matter fined!

I say just do the same over a period of a couple months and then enjoy the complete lack of crap being delivered!

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

So what is it with people in the UK not notifying anyone that they've moved?

I never had this problem when I moved from place to place in the US.

Even if you don't want to pay the post office to have your mail redirected, you can still contact organisations individually and let them know your new address.

When I move, I make a list of everyone that needs to be notified and then contact them.

I consider it to be part of the moving process, like packing your clothes or setting up your utilities.

My guess is it's not the money directly, but the unintended consequence of charging people to forward mail.  In the US it's free, so everyone does it as a matter of course, and it's accepted in the culture that one of the things you do when you move is forward your mail.

In the UK it costs a ridiculous amount of money to forward mail, so nobody does it, and nobody expects it to be done.