A question for those members of the Teeming Millions who are familiar with the inner workings of the US Postal Service.
Is there any rule or procedure that slows down or prevents delivery of a residential letter when there is a full mailing address but no recipient name on the envelope?
I’ve tried writing up a description of my employer’s mailing procedures to give some context, but it keeps turning into a dissertation. So I’ll just leave the question in simple terms for the moment.
‘resident’ or ‘occupant’ are used on commercial mailing when it is intended to go to anyone at that address.
They certainly don’t care if it’s the wrong name on the envelope. I offer as evidence all those years of getting the previous occupant’s mail in various apartments. Often for two or three years after I had established residency.
I have no special experience or expertise regarding the US Postal Service, but no, I don’t think it would matter. I get mail all the time without my name on it, usually advertisements. For example, coupons for Domino’s Pizza addressed to “Pizza Lover” at 123 Main Street, Anytown, USA 12345-6789, also adverts to “Loyal Customer” or “Our Friends,” at 123 Main Street…, etc. Also, with non-forwardable mail such as catalogs, the sender will often address it to “John Smith or Current Resident” to ensure that if John Smith has moved, it will simply be delivered to the person who currently lives at the address.
One thing though is that mail forwarding orders also require a name, not just an address. So if whatever you are sending is specifically intended for said John Smith, it will not be forwarded to him if his name is not on the envelope, even if the item is otherwise “forwardable.”
IMHO (My first SD acronym, yeah!!!), if you are worried about mail arriving to a US address in a timely manner, your number one concern should be making sure you use the correct zip code (12345-6789 in my above example).
It can matter if it’s an incomplete address, like an apartment building or duplex without the apartment number. With a name, the postal carrier can often get it to the correct apartment. But with no name it can’t be delivered.
At an individual house, it will be delivered with no name, or even with a wrong name.
Google ~ USPS address regulations ~ and a half page of PDFs come up.
I didn’t examine any of the for completeness or accuracy or any of that. It has been my experience that I could find anything I wanted to know about USPS online but sometimes it is not the most obvious on the first ghit what the answer may be.
This is correct. The only exception is if someone has put in a forwarding order, in which case it will be forwarded on to their new address.
Once I tried to send a piece of mail to someone who did not go by her legal name, but hadn’t yet changed it. I sent it to her new name because that’s what I know her as and it’s what she prefers. I had the apartment number on there, but it still got returned to sender because it didn’t have her legal name on it.
So apparently some apartment buildings/complexes are picky about the name.
Tell me about it. We still get the occasional letter addressed to the woman who sold us our current house and moved out… eleven years ago.
I know that apartment addresses are tricky. As I understand it, many apartment complexes provide their respective letter carriers with a list of those persons whose names appear on the lease of each unit. So, for example, if the lessee includes the names of his wife and kids on the appropriate form but doesn’t mention that his brother resides there as well, any mail received with the brother’s name as the recipient – even if the apartment number is correct – is liable to be rejected. We’ve seen this happen many, many times with our clients.