Opening Post Addressed to Someone Else

[Haywain]

I've seen quite a few of those where there's been disputes about whether an item is Company X's or Mr X's, or indeed whether items are shared/in a partner's name/on lease rather than owned outright by the specific individual subject to the court order.

That stuff only comes into play when they know they've got the right house or business though.

 

[Starmill]

This requires you either habitually checking the front door before opening all the time, or being aware that it's not somebody you should open the door to before you get there.

Someone who's actually bothered about this kind of thing would likely be in the former category already.

 

[sor]

I once moved into a flat where the previous tenant appeared to do a runner. Lots of unpaid bills addressed to him, the Virgin Media services were still active (as they told us when we tried to sign up), etc. He did have the good grace to pre-pay several months of TV Licence before doing so though. EDF even tried to put his unpaid balance onto our bill. No bailiffs turned up, fortunately.

A theme that continued when the landlord himself got into financial trouble and the flat got reposessed.

I tend to do this - My father and I have the same middle name and very similar first Initials. When I was still living at home it was drilled into me to be careful opening the correct post so that we didn't read each other's bank statements and so on.

There were three of us with the same first initial and surname at my parents' place, two of us Mr. It made opening post without either a first name or middle initial very interesting. Fortunately the banks we used did either of those.

It also led to an interesting screwup - my mum was the name on the electricity bill for many years, but all of a sudden it changed to my name (and my parents were prompt bill payers with no reason to make that change themselves). We never got an answer from the energy firm as to why, and it never showed up on my credit report. (strangely, the same firm was then remarkably difficult to get the name changed to my dad when my mum passed away)

 

[Tetchytyke]

I eventually opened one up and contacted the electricity company by phone to tell them to amend their records. This they did and addressed the bills to the Occupier at my address.

Happens all the time with utility companies. Rather than correcting the address, they just amend the addressee.

It’s why my advice in this thread was to not enter into correspondence.

I've seen quite a few of those where there's been disputes about whether an item is Company X's or Mr X's, or indeed whether items are shared/in a partner's name/on lease rather than owned outright by the specific individual subject to the court order.

The law is clear on what bailiffs and High Court Enforcement Officers (sheriffs) should do if there is a dispute about ownership. Bailiffs- who are mainly employed directly by the Court- will generally behave. Sheriffs- who are paid on commission from property they recover- will generally stretch the law to breaking point.

There’s plenty of stuff shown on the “Can’t Pay” programmes which is outright illegal, which makes me wonder what they don’t show (it doesn’t really- I know exactly what these people are like).

The problem is that there is nobody to complain to when these people break the law. There is very little regulation. What regulation there is is hugely ineffective. So they can act with impunity.

As an example, sheriffs were routinely misusing legislation designed for trespassers to obtain warrants to evict people from their homes. The Master of the Rolls eventually clarified the law. They still tried to continue. Nobody was in a position to stop them, so why would they stop?

 

[spag23]

He did have the good grace to pre-pay several months of TV Licence before doing so though.

You buy a TV licence to cover you and your family's use at whatever property you're living in. It's portable.
So the previous tenant had a licence (wherever he was), but it seems you evaded your own licence for several months.
(Unless you still had one from your own previous property)
It's best to advise the licence people you've moved, in order to update their database and facilitate renewal.
Bottom line; the licence goes with a person, not a property.

 

[spag23]

Beware the scam involving your accepting a correctly named and addressed package you weren't expecting.
This can be a high value item, typically a mobile phone.
The next phase is an email explaining that this was all an error, and that a courier is coming to collect it.
He takes it away, perhaps even giving you a (worthless) signature.
Next month you receive a bill from a mobile phone company, confirming your account opening, and 36 £50/month payments (plus loads of recent overseas call charges).
You say you've never set up such an account, and don't even have the phone.
They'll probably agree to cancelling the account, recognising a case of identity theft.
But they'd want their phone back, pointing out (correctly) that you'd signed for it, or been photographed accepting it.
Then you say you gave it away to a stranger, simply because they'd asked for it.
"Tough" they might say, "just pay us the £1000 for goods you've received".

 

[sor]

You buy a TV licence to cover you and your family's use at whatever property you're living in. It's portable.
So the previous tenant had a licence (wherever he was), but it seems you evaded your own licence for several months.
(Unless you still had one from your own previous property)
It's best to advise the licence people you've moved, in order to update their database and facilitate renewal.
Bottom line; the licence goes with a person, not a property.

Inaccuracy regarding "portability" aside, as you must transfer the licence for it to be valid at your new address *or* you must be covered by the exceptions eg battery powered devices used away from home, you seem to have assumed we watched live TV (at that time iPlayer was not covered by the law). We didn't.

We only realised it once the letters started turning up... (addressed "to the occupier", lest anyone blow gaskets about unauthorised letter opening!)

 

[spag23]

It's best to advise the licence people you've moved, in order to update their database and facilitate renewal.

OK, I stand corrected. It's required to advise TV Licensing of your change of address. But I doubt that anyone who failed to do so would ever be prosecuted (or even surcharged) for such an omission. As long as you've paid for the year. Such simple oversights are not disproportionately penalised by TV Licensing, unlike some sectors we are familiar with.
Anyway my core point remains; a departing householder/tenant cannot bequeath a TV Licence to a new occupier.
Apologies to sor for assuming that his being pleased to inherit the house's TV licence meant that he needed one.

 

[contrex]

Beware the scam involving your accepting a correctly named and addressed package you weren't expecting.
This can be a high value item, typically a mobile phone.
The next phase is an email explaining that this was all an error, and that a courier is coming to collect it.
He takes it away, perhaps even giving you a (worthless) signature.
Next month you receive a bill from a mobile phone company, confirming your account opening, and 36 £50/month payments (plus loads of recent overseas call charges).
You say you've never set up such an account, and don't even have the phone.
They'll probably agree to cancelling the account, recognising a case of identity theft.
But they'd want their phone back, pointing out (correctly) that you'd signed for it, or been photographed accepting it.
Then you say you gave it away to a stranger, simply because they'd asked for it.
"Tough" they might say, "just pay us the £1000 for goods you've received".

Exactly the same thing happened to me, with a couple of variations: (1) there were 2 phones (2) I never even saw them; I just got a card left, with a time of 2 PM on that date. I called the courier firm's number on the card (City Link, now defunct, Bristol branch). I asked about my missed delivery. The manageress said 'But they've been delivered at 3 PM'. I said I was at work miles away at that time. She promised to speak to the driver and ring me back. She did, saying 'He says he went back, and as he was knocking, a man came into the front garden through the gate and gave your name, so he gave him the parcels'. The next stage was the arrival of bills addressed to me from BT Business Mobile for the first month's use of two contract phones. This was the first time I realised the items were mobile phone handsets. I called them, and was put through to a member of their security team. He told me that I was one of a number of people that they had heard from, and the bills would be stopped. The phones, he said, would be sold online, even though they would be useless to the buyers (blocked). This was 2007, when mobile phones were still quite expensive. The BT guy said the culprits probably got my name & address from the voters' register.

The epilogue was 6 months later, when the local paper said that some men, along with 16 out of the 20 Bristol City Link drivers had been charged with conspiracy to defraud in a massive mobile phone fraud scheme.