Royal Mail redirection service

[AY1975]

I wonder how Royal Mail's redirection service copes if someone's old address from which they are having mail redirected can be written in a number of different ways.

For example, if you have both a house number and a house name, some people might put both when writing to you, some might just put the house number and street name and leave out the house name, some might put the house name and street name but leave out the house number, and some might just put the house name, postal town and postcode, leaving out the house number and street name.

Also, apartment blocks sometimes also have a house number if they are numbered with the other houses on that street, e.g. 5 Lemon Court, 35 Apple Street. Some people might write the address in full, some might put 5 Lemon Court, Apple Street, leaving out the house number 35, some might just put 5 Lemon Court and the postal town and postcode, and some might put Flat 5, 35 Apple Street, leaving out Lemon Court.

I would guess that it might just be the surname (and possibly their initial(s)) and postcode that need to match for it to work, but if someone has a common surname such as Smith or Jones, there could potentially be someone else with the same surname, and even the same initial(s), who lives on the same street and whose address is in the same postman's walk area.

There's also the question of what happens if someone is having mail redirected and someone writes to them at their old address and slightly misspells their name.

 

[styles]

I don't know for sure, but here's my thoughts, as someone who currently has a redirect so setting it up is fresh in my mind.

If I search for my old postcode, a street on which there are named houses, the named houses come up with both the name and the number on the address.

There's actually two different ways of naming a house. The first is when the house has a number. The general advice here is you can use whatever name you want, but you must include the house number as well if you expect your mail to be delivered. The second is a property which has only ever had a name. In this case the house name is registered with the local authority (so if you want to change it, you actually have to apply to do so).

So if you were setting up a redirect for a house which has both a name and a number, you'd be wise to set the redirect up with both the name and the number in the address, as this is actually how you should be formatting the address when using the name anyway.

As for spelling mistakes, I don't know. On the one hand you'd think it would be helpful to redirect John Smith to Jon Smith, but they may actually be different people. If you look at some Arab examples, you could have a Mohamed, Mohammed, Muhammed all living at the same property, so it may actually be undesirable to redirect mail with what might be assumed to be slight spelling errors.

That said, when you apply, free or charge you can tick a box to redirect variants of your first name. The example they give is Susan/Sue. You don't get to actually specify the variations though, so this is ultimately an educated guess on RM's part, and quite possibly automated.

I reckon it's one of those situations where if you had a specific requirement you'd have to apply, then contact RM to add some extra notes or config to your redirect and they'd sort it out.

TLDR - I don't actually know, but that's my best guesses.

 

[robvulpes]

I've used RM redirection frequently whilst working (~6 months at a time) away from my permanent home. After some problems I discovered that it's the postie themselves (for the address you're redirecting from) who spots mail addressed to that address whilst finally sorting a street's mail manually for ease of delivery (automated sorting doesn't go below individual postcode level), sticks a redirection label on and puts it in a different bin for forwarding. So it's up to them to use common sense about 'acceptable' variations in the way the address is expressed, spelling mistakes in your surname etc.

Some posties are better than others!