When does mail become your property?

Factual Questions
1

Many years ago I had a problem with receiving mail for what we presumed were deceased former residents of my house. Returning To Sender and writing “Not at this address” did not seem to help as we got monthly/quarterly mail for years.

I spoke to my local postmaster about the issue. He asked me if I had a mail box or if I had a mail slot. I have a mail slot.

He told me that if I receive the mail sent to the correct address and it’s left inside my property, as in, inside my house and not in any kind of a mail box, that the mail becomes my property because it was sent to the correct address and it’s no longer in an authorized mail receptacle.

In looking at the actual statutes today there is no reference to the correct address, but there is reference to the mail being sent to the “person.”

Is what my postmaster said true? Does the mail become my property once it’s delivered to the correct address but to a name which none of the residents have?

What about typos in delivered mail (admittedly a rarity now, but was once and issue), I received email to a garbled name, but my address, I opened the mail and it was meant for me. However what if I opened mail with a garbled name but the correct address, and I realized it was NOT meant for me- at that point is the mail my property or the post office’s property (and then I’m legally bound to return to sender)?

Does mail itself have a legal ownership outside of the name written on the envelope? Let’s say I open a letter and find out it’s a letter or other document written to another person with my name on the envelope. Does that become my property or does the letter, which is meant for someone else, remain their property which I am legally bound to then return to sender as misdirected mail?

I have done all of these things before, down to paying postage to send back a check which was mailed to me in an envelope addressed to me, but which belonged to someone else.

There doesn’t seem to be a solid legal precedent here. Anyone have real experience here?

2

That’s a very interesting question. Seems that the postman had discharged his duty and now your baby. Since you own it do what you wish with it. You tried to do the right thing and got nowhere so no need to beat yourself up.

Do what I do, toss it.

3

How does that match with the laws against tampering with another person’s mail?

I’d say that mail is the property of the person to whom it’s been addressed, no matter whose hands it’s in.

4

This made me think about what the law is in the UK; especially since we regularly get letters addressed to someone else but with our address. They live in another house with a similar number (like we are No 1120 and they are 2120).

I looked it up and found The Postal Services Act 2000:

5

The above seems to apply during “transmission” of the mail … the time the Post Office has possession of the piece … once you pick up the mail, then it’s yours …

6

Section 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.

For a letter; “I thought it was junk mail and opened it by mistake”, would be hard to disprove. A lot of my junk mail is deliberately designed to look ‘official’. More tricky with a package - I got one last week: It was pouring with rain and I had to sign for it. Didn’t realise it wasn’t for me until later. Easiest solution was to re-deliver it myself.

7

Why the postman discharged DC’s baby, we’ll never know.

8

Yep

** When does mail become your property?**= never.

You are never legally allowed to open other peoples mail. (POA issues, kids arr minor exceptions).

9

Do you have laws about unsolicited goods in the US? It’s illegal here now, but I once joined a book club that ignored all my requests to resign and sent me a book every month and invoicing me. I kept them all and after a while wrote and told them that I was going to charge for storage. They did give up eventually and I passed the books on to a charity, after giving them a thorough check of course.

10

Yes, but those are addressed to you. Entirely different than the OP.

11

Well sure you are, if you didn’t “know or reasonably suspect” it was delivered to you incorrectly, or if you didn’t “intend to act to a person’s detriment”, or were “with reasonable excuse”. There’s a ton of leeway built into that law, presumably to deal with the fact that many (most?) people open mail without even looking to see if its addressed to them.

12

If you’re divorced, you’re ex’s mail is now yours? If your child is at college, their mail is yours?

What’s the problem with ‘Return to Sender’ and leaving it to the mail people to deal with?

13

Did you miss the “intending to act to a person’s detriment and without reasonable excuse” bit?

The law is flexible enough to recognise that people often just open whatever is delivered to them and, absent malicious intent, that’s OK.

14

Yes, but you cant deliberately do it. Yes, if you do so accidentally you can be given a pass. But you dont have a right to do so on purpose.

15

So you’re admitting your previous post was incorrect.

16

No.

When does mail become your property?= never.

And, you are not legally allowed to, you just may not suffer any penalties for doing so, which is entirely different.

17

This was yonks ago, but I signed up for a book club and separately a music one (Britannia rings a bell?). Anyway, after totally rinsing them on the introductory offers, I fulfilled my commitment to buy x amount over the next 12 months or whatever. I then wrote to them both to say I wasn’t interested any more, but I still got a monthly package containing the book/CD of the month from each of them,for the next four or so years I lived in that flat. I never made any effort to return the packages or pay for them. I wonder how long those packages were still being delivered to the people I sold the flat to.

18

To be a bit more grammatically careful…mail becomes yours, as soon as it is CORRECTLY delivered to you. In a way, it is yours before that. As soon as it is assigned to you by the person sending it, and it is properly configured addressed and postage paid, it is yours.

Someone ELSE’s mail NEVER becomes yours.

The delivery service NEVER owns your or anyone else’s mail, hence the fact that they give it to someone that it isn’t addressed to, has no power or authority to cause ownership to shift from the addressee to whoever comes into possession of it.

The thing I heard about, but never really benefited from, which might be confusing things, is that if someone SENDS something to you that you did not contract with them to do, they can’t charge you for it. Which makes sense. Otherwise, any company who wanted to sell things no one wanted, would be able to send them to anyone at all, bill them, and get paid.

19

Mail never becomes your property? The birthday card I sent my Dad last week still belongs to me?

And the cited law says “a person commits an offence if” - so presumably, if they don’t meet all the criteria, they haven’t committed an offence (in the UK at least).

20

Is ownership the right question here? I’m pretty sure the fact that someone else owns a thing doesn’t automatically obligate you to keep that thing for them and make an effort to get it back to them. Like, there’s a big difference between finding a quarter on the ground and finding a big wad of $100 bills. They both have an owner, but you can pocket the quarter and not the $100s.