What is going on with my mail?

March 5, 2018 7:57 AM

I have a weird mail forwarding situation going on and I don't know how to get it to stop.

Basically, I own a house with another person (I'm in the US). The mortgage statements come addressed with my name listed first and his second. Almost two years ago, he moved to another state. We're working on all the legal things, but for now he remains on the mortgage. Problem is, when he initially set up mail forwarding, the mortgage statements got caught up in that and were going to his new address out of state. This is STILL happening even though the USPS website says they only forward mail for a year. They no longer even get the yellow sticker with the new address put on them -- it's like something in some system decided that "[his name] + [my house address] = go to different address out of state, forever."

This isn't the worst thing in the world, but we'd both prefer if it stopped happening. Should I call someone about it, or should he? And who -- the USPS? Our bank? Both?

posted by catoclock to Home & Garden (8 answers total)

Best answer: Call the bank. It sounds like they updated the account address.
posted by DoubleLune at 7:59 AM on March 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Yeah. I own a house with another person in another state. If you do not see the yellow sticker this is not a USPS thing. The bank maybe did a thing. You should be able to

1. get the "mailing address" of the account updated, assuming you are on the same page about this
2. get electronic delivery of the mortgage statements and set up an email filter so that you both receive them
posted by jessamyn at 8:25 AM on March 5, 2018

Response by poster: Yes, sorry, forgot to mention that I live in the house and pay the entire mortgage, so he's not financially involved at all at this point. We're totally on the same page and just want the dang statements to come to me.

Bizarrely, my current partner is in a very similar situation with his ex and their former house, except he's the one erroneously getting the mortgage statements (also sans USPS sticker). So I'll pass this info on to him and hopefully soon we will all harmoniously receive the correct mail at the correct addresses...

Thanks!!
posted by catoclock at 8:51 AM on March 5, 2018

So USPS has a program where if mail gets forwarded, they will send a card to the sender that says "Hey we forwarded your mail!" And the sender can update their records. Usually this is a good thing but if mail gets inadvertently forwarded and the sender doesn't check with the recipients, it can lead to results like this one.

All that being said, the bank needs to correct the mailing address on the account, which you should be able to do online or over the phone.
posted by muddgirl at 9:17 AM on March 5, 2018

Yeah, when USPS forwards the mail, they also notify the sender of the address change, so it's likely whoever your mortgage is through has updated the address on their end. All you need to do is call them and give them the correct address.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:15 AM on March 5, 2018

Response by poster: Sorry to threadsit but...I just spoke with two different people at my bank and they swore up and down that they only have a single address associated with the account (one person even specified that they have the same address -- mine -- listed for each one of us separately). So now I'm even more confused!
posted by catoclock at 11:19 AM on March 5, 2018

I'd call USPS then.

I also highly recommend signing up for USPS Informed Delivery. It's this cool feature that sends scanned images of incoming mail to your email so you can see what's coming. I also have found using customer service on their website easier than calling. But YMMV.
posted by AppleTurnover at 11:30 AM on March 5, 2018

So if I'm understanding correctly, the envelope has your correct address printed on it, but is somehow being delivered to the other person at an address that is not the one on the envelope?
That pretty much has to be USPS somehow. Can you confirm that the address is entirely correct (zip code included)?

I don't know how they're managing to deliver the mail to him with no marking on the envelope for his address. Is he at a small post office where the carrier just knows his name and is delivering it to him despite it having an address for another city/state?

I think the place to start is with your local post office, since the mail is addressed to you but not being delivered properly. If the first person you talk to can't solve it, you may need to escalate to the Postmaster, but there should be someone at your post office that can figure out why mail addressed to you is arriving at a different address.
posted by yuwtze at 11:44 AM on March 5, 2018