Misaddressed post

[jack]

Does anyone happen to know what one can/must do with misaddressed post? Googling says

1. The only views commonly advocated are included by:

(a) You may cross your address and write "return to sender" when the post office will if they can (empirically works)
(b) You may cross your address and write the correct address, and the post office will redeliver it (empirically works)
(c) You must do (a) or (b)
(d) You may not open it (I think this is supported by the law below)

2. The only relevent statue a cursory search found was Postal Services Act 2000, Section 84. Including:

(1) A person commits an offence if, without reasonable excuse, he- (a) intentionally delays or opens a postal packet in the course of its transmission by post, or (b) intentionally opens a mail-bag.

(3) A person commits an offence if, intending to act to a person's detriment and without reasonable excuse, he opens a postal packet which he knows or reasonably suspects has been incorrectly delivered to him.

It seems blessedly free of any jargon and reasonably complete. I haven't much practice at reading statutes. I don't know:

(a) If transmission by post stops when it hits letter bix
(b) If you are safe to act without detriment OR with detriment but also a reasonable excuse?
(c) If this act is superceded by anything else.

If I cared, how *would* I find out?

3. I think I can do what I like with it.

(a) Was I ever obliged to return it? If so can I send 100k parcels eg. masks misaddressed to my enemy?
(b) If not, but I've collected a too-big pile of mostly mundane letters to previous tennants, is it possible to bundle it up in any way, or must I throw it away or write return to sender 50 times (that's a slgiht hassle)? The postman suggested not.

Comments

[mair_in_grenderich]

there was a thread about this recently (week or two ago) on a mailing list I watch

- about how to handle post addressed to the previous occupant or whatever, anyway.

(archived, but you have to register & wait for approval... ) (summary below...)

the replies there were:
- it is an offense to throw away the misaddressed post
- you can just scrawl "No longer at this address" or shorten to DLO (doesn't live here? not sure) on the envelope and shove it back in the mailbox.

it's certainly not up to you to open the envelope; that's royal mail's business.

we did open an envelope sent to the previous occupant, can't remember why. perhaps it had a window and his name was obscured. wasn't I who opened it, but some guests of mine, and it was some weeks after I'd received it. It said that Bailiffs would be coming round in the next week to repossess all my stuff and they'd break in if I wasn't there. They hadn't, though. Don't know why not. You can see how I could have got myself in a situation where not following the rules could have had awkward consequences, there.

Stephen wrote: Can I throw away mail that comes to my address but is not addressed to me?

> EH: "You oughtn't to misappropriate it - but that wasn't your
> question."

> Well it does form the basis of my next question: what does
> 'misappropriate' mean in this context? Throw it away?

As it happens I recently asked the Royal Mail about this and they said (inter alia)

If you receive mail which is addressed to a previous occupier of your house you should write 'recipient no longer at this address' on the envelope and place it in any post box. Where practical we will return the item to the sender.

You should not throw the mail away, please see below the statement
regarding the laws around opening mail.

"Section 56 of the Post Office Act 1953, contains relevant legislation which states that it is an offence to open any postal packet which ought to have been delivered to another person, or to do any act, or thing hereby the delivery of that packet to that person is prevented or impeded. Postal packet is defined under section 87 of the 1953 Act as any item transmissible by post. The offence does not apply to a person engaged in the business of the Post Office, for which conduct there are other offences within the Act. The maximum penalty is a fine of £2500 and/or six months imprisonment. This offence occurs after delivery and is normally investigated by the police"

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Eek at bailiffs. The POA 1953 sounds clear, but it sounds like it overlaps with 2000, I dont' know how they're supposed to interact.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

The whole of the 1953 Act is repealed by the 2000 Act. (See Schedule 9.)

(S)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That's what I wondered, thanks. Whence do you find that out? Just by looking at 2000? Is there a default way to check if any unspecified act modifies this one?

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

I just looked in the Repeals and Revocations section of the 2000 Act. Most legislation has one.

There isn't an OPSI-provided way of going from legislation to Acts or SIs amending or repealing that legislation. (If you have LexisNexis access it keeps track of these things a bit.)

(S)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That makes sense, thanks! I should be au faiter with all this.

If you have LexisNexis access it keeps track of these things a bit.

*misses dating a lawyer*

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I *could* ask the post office, but I have a feeling they'd just read it out of a faq, and if that's wrong it wouldn't technically be a defense :)

[simont]

I had a bit of a problem with this last year. When I moved house in 2003, I didn't get a forwarding address for the previous tenants, but Becky was still in touch with them; so I collected their post, and a few months later they came round to visit Becky and I passed it all over to them. So far so good. I continued collecting their post on the basis that they would presumably do that again, but they never did.

Eventually, faced with a two-year backlog of post and no way of delivering it to the intended recipients, I put a request through the Royal Mail website asking what I should do. They said I really should label it all "not known at this address" and put it back into my local postbox; they specifically said that if I thought it would overflow my local postbox (which I did) then I should put it in over the course of several days. So I did that, by printing lots of "not known" labels to save the seriously tedious bit.

I haven't had much post for them since. I like to think that the spammy companies, which might incompetently have ignored one or two "not known" letters turning up at once, sat up and took notice when ten or fifteen showed up on the same day, and decided it really was worth removing this address from their lists :-)

[aldabra]

OMG, illegal to *delay* redirection of mail?

I've got some labels printed with their new address on, and about once every three or four months I go through the pile of accumulated mail and stick labels on the ones to them and repost them.

I throw away and/or open stuff to people I don't have addresses for (it's typically evangelical catalogues and I sit in the bath and giggle at the enclosed apology that the bobbies have asked them not to send out their usual Lenten ash this year in case it's mistaken for anthrax; I don't open personal letters).

OMG, illegal to *delay* redirection of mail?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

(a) I think that might only apply in transit in the post office system, not once you've got it. (b) You have to do it intentionally and without reasonable excuse. "I forgot" might be enough if you're not a postman :)

the bobbies have asked them not to send out their usual Lenten ash this year in case it's mistaken f

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Eek.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think it counts as unintentional if you're just disorganised and don't do it for a few months. Opening their junk mail counts as illegal though, I'm afraid.

Opening their junk mail counts as illegal though, I'm afraid.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought, but the consensus above seems to be that the PSA 2000 act superceded the previous one which said that, and this one may but it isn't clear. You don't know any more, do you?

Re: Opening their junk mail counts as illegal though, I'm afraid.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I just got told that as a "by the way" when I was being trained at the Post Office in 2003; the training guy didn't give a source, and I'm not sure whether he knew.

Re: Opening their junk mail counts as illegal though, I'm afraid.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah, yeah. I mentioned my pile to the postman before doing anything else, but he didn't know or have time to think about it. Which is fair enough, I can't expect postman pat :( But not veyr helpful.

[satanicsocks.livejournal.com]

but every place i've ever lived in has accumulated mail to the previous tenants which eventually got binned. nothing important, mind, usually junk. important-looking stuff gets sent back :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Misaddressed as in "to somebody who doesn't live at your house, your house, postcode" - return to sender with "not at this address" or something written on it, or send to a forwarding address if you know it.

Misaddressed as in "to somebody you don't know, wrong house, wrong postcode" - stick it in the postbox again.

[senji.livejournal.com]

I usually scrawl "read the address" on it first, in the latter case :-).