It takes 10 business days for the change to become effective. Citizenship and Immigration Services.įilling out the change of address paperwork and submitting it online is easy and painless. Consider reaching out to utility providers, the newspaper, schools, the IRS, Social Security Administration, DMV, election offices, the Department of Veterans Affairs or U.S. You don't want to annoy the next person who takes over your address.Īs a first step, you should fill out a change of address form.īut there are entities you might want to contact directly. Since you may not always have the same mail carrier every day, you have to hope that they bring back the news and share it with the office. You can also speak directly to your mail carrier and explain the situation. For example, “Former Tenant's Name is not at this address" or “Please deliver mail only to Current Tenant's Name." In the note, write to your mail carrier the names of the people who no longer live there. If sending mail back doesn't work, you can put a note into your mailbox. How can I make wrongly addressed mail stop coming? Click this link for “Deceased Do Not Contact Registration" to stop the junk mail from coming to you. If you know that the intended junk mail recipient is deceased, you can report the death to the Direct Marketing Association. It's still mail and falls under the heading, “it's a federal crime to open or destroy mail that is not meant for you." This lets the post office know that the person is no longer at your address, but the post office will not necessarily return the letter to the original sender.Įventually, the post office will get all this information into the system and the wrongly addressed mail should stop coming to you. If you have no idea where the other person lives, write “moved," “not at this address," or “return to sender, address unknown" on the envelope. If you fill out a change of address form for the person, they will get a notification in the mail, and you'll be in hot water. Thinking you'll be a good citizen by filling out a change of address form for the other person is not a good idea. This is part of the USPS's automated system and removing it makes the system register the mail as “undeliverable." In addition, if there's a bar code on the envelope, cross it out. Then, on the same side of the envelope write something like, “Please forward not at this address." Write the new address near the incorrect one. If you know where the person now resides, you can forward the mail to them by crossing out the address only - leave their name - on the envelope. If a previous tenant tells you that, reply with a hard "no" they need to fill out a change of address form. Note that you are not responsible for holding someone's mail. That person might appreciate getting that $14 check from Great Aunt Gladys. Also, the previous tenant may have filled out the correct forms, but this piece of mail fell through the cracks. Plus, the sender will never know the person is no longer at that address. Trashing the mail is the same as destroying it. FindLaw cautions that if you get charged with “obstruction of correspondence," you should contact a criminal defense attorney right away. If you know the previous tenant or the person whose name is on the envelope and that person told you to open the mail, then it's all right to go ahead and do so. Someone would have to prove you intended to steal something in order to involve the authorities. If you do open something by accident, not to worry, you won't immediately hear sirens. In a word, “No." It's a federal crime to open or destroy mail that is not meant for you - even junk mail. What are you supposed to do with mail for a previous tenant and how do you stop it from showing up day after day? Because at some point, the task of taking care of it gets old. If you're a new resident in a house or apartment, you'll likely get snail mail sent for the previous tenant(s).
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