Previous Home Owner's Debt

[thelewisgang]

I moved into my house last December & in January received a letter which I opened in error. This was addressed to the previous owner & it was a demand for money he owed (several hundreds of pounds at that time). I rang the company who had sent it & explained the addressee did not live here now. I was assured it would be looked into. In March I had another letter which I did not open! I wrote across the envelope "no longer at this address, return to sender" & I then emailed the company to say I was not happy at still getting these letters. They did not reply. Now today I have had yet another letter, sent 1st class mail & will be putting that back in the post tomorrow & like before will write "not known at this address". I am concerned as I do not want my address blacklisted nor do I want bailiffs to come knocking. How on earth do I get this company to realise he does not live here now?

[fiction-factory]

Just keep sending them back. The problem is though lots of people who haven't moved also try the 'goneaway' trick so it may take some time before it's sorted. Maybe send something like a council tax bill showing you live there now.
I don't believe addresses can be blacklisted

[ummmm]

Houses aren't blacklisted, people are.

Just keep returning the mail. If bailiffs knock on your door there isn't anything they can do.

[losgigs]

Don't worry. They can't blacklist an address. You have done everything you can by telling the company by phone and email that the previous owner has moved. Do you have a forwarding address that you can pass on?

[Retrochic]

Get a photocopy of your Council Tax bill or similar Utility Bill and send it to the debt company recorded delivery proving you live there. Next check the electoral role to make sure the name of the person who is in debt is not on there and if it is have the mane removed. Next check your credit record (its free) to see if any name other than yours is linked to your address (highly unlikely) and if it is inform the credit referencing agency. If its any conciliation we have a few properties we rent out and I just throw debt collectors letters away after any tenants have moved on. I would bin them and forget about them.

[Buenchico]

Credit reference agencies aren't permitted to blacklist people based solely upon their address.

Creditors can't send in bailiffs until:
(a) they've obtained a County Court Judgement against the debtor; AND
(b) the debtor has defaulted upon that judgement ; AND
(c) the creditor has then obtained another court order, permitting them to use bailiffs.

Since the court processes referred to above require the issuing of court summonses against the debtor, and you've not had anyone trying to deliver a summons at your door, you can't have any bailiffs on their way to your house.

Do NOT simply write 'not known at this address' on the envelope. Instead return it inside another envelope, with a covering letter roughly as follows:

"Sirs,
Take notice that Frederick Bloggs (to whom you keep sending letters) no longer lives at the above address.

This property is now occupied by myself, Agatha Martha Lewis, and my husband, Archibold Ferdinand Lewis. Neither of us know, or have known, Frederick Bloggs and neither of us have ever had any financial connections with him.

Our presence at this address can be confirmed, via credit reference agencies, through consultation of the electoral roll. We have lived at this address since 14 December 2014.

Frederick Bloggs did not leave a forwarding address; we have no knowledge of his whereabouts nor way of contacting him.

Yours faithfully

A. M Lewis"

Send your letter by recorded delivery (or, as Royal Mail now prefer to call it, 'Signed for'). It will obviously cost you a small amount more than simply dropping the wrongly-addressed envelope back into a post box but it's far more likely to get you a positive result.

[thelewisgang]

I appreciate all your helpful replies. I did tell the company when I rang them in January I did not know his new address but I did know the solicitor who he used for his conveyance work & could dig that out if they requested it but as I said previously they told me it would definitely be sorted with their accounts department & obviously it hasn't been. I think I will ring them again tomorrow...my daytime calls are free & tell them I want no more letters dropping on my doormat!! thanks again

[Maydup]

its OK to ring again but since it didn't work the first time, I'd take the very good advice given by Buenchico and write exactly as he has suggested.

A written letter with a very clear instruction usually gets attended to over a phone call which could still be from the debtor pretending to have moved on.

[Buenchico]

You've saved me some typing, Maydup.

Thank you!

;-)

[Peter Pedant]

This is a common situation
you are not alone,

The companies should hahaha have an RTS scheme so that once a letter is returned, it goes into their system and they investigate the address and so on and then stop hounding you . Ha ha ha that is a good one

Do as BC says

think about adding:

Please act on this information, as under the Data Protection Act you are required to keep accurate and up to date records.
We will both ( LL and tenant ) consider any further correspondence from you or the further selling on of this alleged debt to others to reflect your intention to pursue a course of conduct amounting to harassment of another which could cause mental anguish alarm and distress and as to trying to co-erce a payment contrary to the Administration of Justice Act 1979 and Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

lurve the lewis gang xx

I got so many for s/o ( ex tenant ) who was obviously defrauding up to ten firms so I kept a returned letter register - there is always a return address - and so the first one got opened by mistake and answered and then thereafter they were entered into the register and RTS'd

Further letters contained - "I wrote on 1st Jan and returned further letters to you on 2 Feb, 15 Mar etc"

I also included my own CCJ against him which I spose kinda gave me cred

If you ignore or throw them away you MAY get a default judgement,
and these are a bit of a pain to deal with

I have before writing this, consulted my register. The tenant vacated without notice Nov 12 - first letter Jan 13 and last dunning letter precisely a year later - letters returned - only 20 when I was doing it it seemed many more


I met him on the street about a year later and he said
" Look I am terribly sorry about this mix up - I am seeking to be restored to the professional register " ( ! ! )
and I said: and they have found the CCJ .....
[ that might have been because I sent it to them ]

[Peter Pedant]

ring only if you know where the little rat has run to
otherwise write - saves time in the end

[jamesnan]

My daughter has been in her house for about 15 years and still gets letters like that for the previous occupants. She just send straight back marked "Not at this address"

[Retrochic]

Why do some people get excellent advice (from Buenchico) ,totally ignore it then say they are going to do what they did originally that had no effect? Telephoning a Debt Company has no effect what-so-ever,you have no record you have spoken to them and no evidence you have even ever contacted them. Take the advice and write a letter.

[thelewisgang]

Retrochic, I did not ignore the very helpful post by Buenchico & do not like being accused of doing so. I actually chose his reply as the "best answer" to my original posting. I have found Buenchico very helpful in the past too & would like to say a big thank you to him for his information & thank you to everyone else who responded to my post.

[Peter Pedant]

I think there is a good spectrum of answers, Retro

I think also advice givers dont give up - Chris is very helpful and seems to know everything - because they know that advice is not taken. As soon as s/o says "I get dunning letters, and they come and they come ! " you know they havent written ....

If it is taken, they are instructions

and Lewis has thanked us all very prettily

[ You basically have to get over the social inhibition of not opening letters, because it can affect your wallet. Once you do that - it is very straight forward luckily I have children around who open EVERYTHING ! ]

and if it were true, addresses werent linked to debt - you would never get dunning letters would you ? and vizeets from debt collectors .....

O I have been cloned which concentrates a mind on such things

[Hopkirk]

I just bin mine.

[fiction-factory]

Jamesnan. You say:

"My daughter has been in her house for about 15 years and still gets letters like that for the previous occupants. She just send straight back marked 'Not at this address' "

Maybe if she had followed the steps suggested in this thread she would not have continued to receive them for 15 years