Is it legal to not accept mail for non-tenants?

[Zigner]

He sort of did, but kind of vaguely, in his initial post.

Yes, that's true.

 

[quincy]

Oh sorry, I guess the question I should have asked is if it's legal for a tenant to receive mail for anyone who doesn;t live in the apartment and whose name is not on the lease?

Mail generally gets delivered by address rather than name. Previous tenants might still get mail sent to the rental address if they did not supply the post office with a forwarding address.

This mail should be returned unopened to the post office.

 

[mikehende]

Thought I had explained this in my OP, let me explain again in more detail please.

This is a legal 2 family with the 2nd floor apartment being rented and has it's own entrance at the back of the house so as a favor to the tenants I deliver their mail to them upstairs. We have had issues in the past with police coming here looking for someone associated with a tenant who never lived here who had given the tenant's apartment address, the mail comes with the person's own name, not the tenant's name or c/o. Also we had one tenant having their friends or relatives hospital bills coming here so bill collectors was an issue

So we are simply trying to avoid any situations with law enforcement, bill collectors or anyone inquiring here about any tenant's friends/relatives who doesn;t live here is all.

 

[Zigner]

Thought I had explained this in my OP, let me explain again in more detail please.

This is a legal 2 family with the 2nd floor apartment being rented and has it's own entrance at the back of the house so as a favor to the tenants I deliver their mail to them upstairs. We have had issues in the past with police coming here looking for someone associated with a tenant who never lived here who had given the tenant's apartment address. Also we had one tenant having their friends or relatives hospital bills coming here so bill collectors was an issue.

So we are simply trying to avoid any situations with law enforcement, bill collectors or anyone inquiring here about any tenant's friends/relatives who doesn;t live here is all.

I would suggest that you not hand-deliver the tenants' mail any more.

 

[mikehende]

Thanks, will not solve the issue if a tenant is allowed to receive other people's mail but i understand why it's best I not deliver their mail.

 

[cbg]

Yes. It is legal for a landlord to refuse to accept mail for non-tenants.

Is that quite clear now?

 

[mikehende]

Great, problem solved, thank you all for all of the solid advice!

 

[FarmerJ]

Ldij when you wrote > However, the landlord should NOT have access to the mail for apartment A. < I would bet that access is a localized definition , when I had a duplex across the street from my first home there were two non locking regular outdoor mail boxes side by side one was marked 236 UP and the other 236 down. , when I had the four plex again there was no requirement to have locking boxes , the mail carrier would enter the porch and put it all on a small table in that porch and after I moved in I opened up the old mail slot out next to the porch door since I wanted the front porch door kept locked , the mail fell into a bin and No one ever had mail get stolen But my point is that I regularly found mail to people who were not my tenants or were former tenants and would write on it does not live here return to sender on it and put it back into the mail. So as with many smaller multi unit places it can be easy to find mail for people who are not tenants and Ill lay odds that many current tenants aren't going to tell a landlord let alone a on site landlord about cousin Mary or Moe using their mailing address. ( side note Grand child Jeannie and her mom have used our address out of the blue with out consent in the last year and they have not lived here since mid 2005 and if they had asked they would have been told no )

 

[Zipzip]

You could go to the post office and speak to the postmaster with the mail in hand. Politely ask what if anything can be done as you are weary of writing return to sender.

 

[quincy]

You could go to the post office and speak to the postmaster with the mail in hand. Politely ask what if anything can be done as you are weary of writing return to sender.

If there is a large quantity of misdirected or mislabeled mail, contacting the post office might be smart for a typical residence. But mail sent to tenants can be a little trickier.

Mail sent to vacated tenants is a pretty common issue because many tenants fail to supply the post office with a forwarding address when they move, and there is frequent turnover. It is not the job of the post office to guess at who lives in an apartment. They deliver the mail to the address on the envelope.

The post office DOES provide "return to sender" stickers upon request. Mikehende might want to have some of those on hand for his tenants to use.

 

[FarmerJ]

Mike Perhaps a roster at the mail box may be a solution such as your households name with DOWN after it and tenant name (s) UP , AS to the rest with others using the address there just isn't any way to stop them from initially doing it and that even includes a drug dealer who might be arrested out on the street offering your address to the police rather than give own address. ( as to bringing the tenants mail to them I see nothing wrong with it , We used to also have a problem with non resident mail being tossed on the floor by residents when the carrier could get in and leave the mail in the ONE larger box that was inside the porch when we bought the place. So once the drop slot was re opened and new lock added to the front door and every one had keys most of the time who ever picked the mail out of the drop slot sorted it and would put it under the others doors. So until local law requires individual locked mail boxes for each unit OR the post office contacts you about it I suggest you just keep doing the return to sender addressee unknown .

 

[quincy]

Mike Perhaps a roster at the mail box may be a solution such as your households name with DOWN after it and tenant name (s) UP , AS to the rest with others using the address there just isn't any way to stop them from initially doing it and that even includes a drug dealer who might be arrested out on the street offering your address to the police rather than give own address. ( as to bringing the tenants mail to them I see nothing wrong with it , We used to also have a problem with non resident mail being tossed on the floor by residents when the carrier could get in and leave the mail in the ONE larger box that was inside the porch when we bought the place. So once the drop slot was re opened and new lock added to the front door and every one had keys most of the time who ever picked the mail out of the drop slot sorted it and would put it under the others doors. So until local law requires individual locked mail boxes for each unit OR the post office contacts you about it I suggest you just keep doing the return to sender addressee unknown .

It is important that, if the envelope is addressed to the apartment (regardless of the name on the envelope), the mail be delivered to that apartment. The tenant becomes responsible for sending back any misaddressed mail.

If it is known that one of the mail recipients is living in the apartment without authorization, that is a separate issue that needs to be addressed with the actual tenant before the unauthorized "guest" establishes residence and requires eviction.

You will never eliminate mislabeled or misdirected mail being delivered to you (my parents still receive mail addressed to me and I haven't lived with them for many many many years). But it really is not all that difficult to put return-to-sender on envelopes.

 

[cbg]

We got some mail addressed to my daughter today. She hasn't lived with us since she was a sophomore in college, and she's currently working on her PhD.

 

[LdiJ]

I still get mail addressed to my ex husband, and we split up 27 years ago.

 

[justalayman]

Oh sorry, I guess the question I should have asked is if it's legal for a tenant to receive mail for anyone who doesn;t live in the apartment and whose name is not on the lease?

yes it is

I am not in agreement with a landlord returning mail addressed to a person not living at the unit unless it is a former tenant and the unit is not occupied. The landlord has no right to divert mail of any sort sent to a particular address where there is a current resident. It is up to the tenants to deal with the mail. For all the landlord knows, a current tenant may intentionally be receiving mail for a prior tenant.