Hi all - I remember before moving to my current address I was sent a letter when my name was still not on the mailbox and the letter was returned to the sender. My wife usually goes by her maiden name with a lot of her friends back in the UK.
If they send to our address (We live in a house) but list the maiden name - does it still make its way to us? Very curious.

There was a nice care package from her old Scottish Uni friends that never made it to us, and we are wondering if that's the reason!?

why not put both names on the box? that's what most people do.

i had a similar experience when i lived in the city in an apartment. mail to my daughter was returned to sender with a sticker saying, not know at address. same surname, different initial.

since i moved to a house outside the city i've never had any problems. i don't have any name at all on my mailbox. the address is unique, the post people all know me personally and everything always gets delivered.

Her maiden name should be on the post box.

How frustrating - thank you all.
As that was likely sent with no return address she will go to the local post office tomorrow and see what can be done about it (6 hand wool knitted jumpers for our daughters... More than just a product!)

A parcel sent Scotland-Switzerland would've needed a customs declaration, and so a return address.

Also, it was rather silly for her friends to send a parcel of hand knitted stuff without registering it. I know how much time and love goes into making such things and wouldn't dream of simply trusting the post with anything precious.

Put both names on your letterbox, it's not difficult!

Why do so many people eschew including their return address on their post? Of the Christmas cards we receive it seems that only the Swiss (residents) habitually include it.

Are you asking whether it is possible that a parcel addressed to a name not on the mailbox did not reach you for that reason? Highly likely.... How is the postman to know?

It is very frustrating ... I don't know why we can't have apartment numbers here, that way anyone staying with you at your address can receive mail. I've been married for 11 years and I do not want to have my maiden name on my post box as I have not gone by that name since the day I was married...yet, because I will somehow be forever tied to that name, I will continue to have post sent back because of it.

He said that they live in a house so presumably the only family at that address. I would have thought the postman could have rung the bell to ask if it was for them.
I have received post addressed to me by my maiden name at our house despite that name being on the box.
Having said that the post people do know us quite well.

But in such cases they will usually stick a note on the mail box where they ask if a Mrs. Jane Doe lives at that place and if yes they should be so kind to update the name plate.

A drawback of that is that mail which goes to a wrong or outdated address will be delivered. Mail which might contain sensitive information or valuable content. And the sender is non the wiser as they never get informed about the wrong address.

We do. We only recently got a house number, however.

Tom

good point...

We had a not too different situation but were told legal names can only go on the mailbox

Worse than that, we have a friend who lives in a large apartment block where the mail boxes aren't sorted in any logical order, either alphabetically or by floor. E.g. on the top row of boxes are flats from the 3rd, 11th, 7th, 6th, and 3rd floors, the second row, 8th, 5th, 8th, 10th, 3rd, etc. etc. I have no idea how the postmen deliver mail every day without going slightly crazy.

There is a standard and accepted solution for that: c/o

Mr. Dear Guest
c/o Mrs. Lovely Host
Kioskstrasse 1
1234 Hotelhausen
SUISSE / SWITZERLAND

yes this. We had this in our flat abroad and got PIN and Bank Card from someone who had left 2 years previous and never updated address at the bank....

Let us have a look in the actual legislations
Art. 73 Abs. 3 Postverordnung
Nothing about "legal name" (what ever that should be), just a good readable "address" so that mail can be delivered.

And legally you can go by a pseudonym: https://www.namens-recht.ch/namensbildung

For houses surely they should deliver any mail addressed to that house number - it is uniquely identifiable.

But the formal rules are here: https://www.post.ch/en/sending-lette...ents-correctly

Formal requirements:
- At least three and a maximum of six lines
- Addressing always in the longitudinal direction of the shipment
- No blank lines between the address lines
- Left-justified address lines
- Do not underline or block neither postcode nor city
- Addresses that are not completely visible in the address window can neither be processed nor delivered

A correct postal address contains:
- Unambiguous recipient information with full company name, surname and first name (avoid confusion)
- Second bottom line: the full, official street name and the correct house number or, in the case of post office box addresses, the term
"PO Box" (without specifying the PO box number)
- Bottom line: the correct postcode and the full place name

That "unambiguous" point is itself ambiguous since a single house with a number can't really be confused for anywhere else (assuming it only has one postbox)

We got quite a few bits of mail for the previous owner when we moved in, all advertising and stuff like trade magazines.

And then there is the teensy matter of us receiving our voting documents by post. I'm told that other countries have a bit of a palaver with that concept... Probably doesn't help that it is not always clear who lives at an address!

It's normal in France too, but not in the UK. Historically it's just never been a thing, so it wouldn't occur to most UK residents to do so, just for the lack of any reason why they would.

Yes, a pain, isn't it? And I think that answers your own (implied) question.

We live in a house, but with multiple apartments, some of which are (only one now, but four or five when we bought it and historically before that) long-term rentals, and I'm glad that when one of our tenants had moved out I was able to stop her mail simply by telling the Post Office that she no longer lived here - even removing her name from the postbox wasn't enough.

This is only possible if names as well as addresses are used by the PO. Who knows what other mail might still be getting delivered if they didn't validate the name as well? And how much of that might be important enough that the sender really needs to know it hasn't reached its intended recipient?