A piece of certified mail came today for our landlord, who doesn’t live here any more. But, I signed for it anyway, and then contacted my landlord about it. Was this the right thing to do, or are you only supposed to sign for certified mail if you’re in the household of the intended recipient?
The Post office can accept any signature of a “responsible adult”, using the postal worker’s discretion… Common sense (which never applies in practice) would suggest that the PO should ensure that the person who signs can be identified, at least by legibility of signature, since the PO has the burden of proving delivery.
Define “right.” If you mean can you do it, of course. The purpose of a certified letter receipt is for the sender to be able to prove the mail was delivered, and to whom. He (the sender) can now subpoena you to testify in a civil suit that he might bring in which his having mailed something or other to the landlord is important. Of course, he can thereby only prove it was delivered to you. Whether it got from your hands to the landlord’s is another story. But you would testify you contacted your landlord, so it would probably work out OK.
A registered letter can have its delivery restricted to the addressee, in which case you could not have signed for it, nor kept it, but then the postman wouldn’t have asked you to anyway.
It’s possible your landlord wouldn’t necessarily appreciate your signing for it, if he wants not to get that particular bit of mail. That wouldn’t generally be wise: there are very few situations that can be improved by hiding from a letter you don’t want to get. But it might be human nature.
On the other hand, maybe it’s wonderful news. Maybe he was just told he would inherit $100 million if and only if he called a certain phone number within 12 hours of the receipt of that letter, and since thanks to your action he did, he’l be sharing $250,000 with you as a token of appreciation.