How to reinstate an old name for our house

[Minkeycat]

Our house had a name since it was built a few centuries ago until about, we think, the 1960s. It's now just plain old "No 2". We'd like to reinstate the old, original name. Can anyone tell me, what are the implications of this and do we have to do anything "official" or can we just get a name plate made up and stick it on it?

As ever, helpful suggestions are appreciated and welcomed.

 

[MikeG]

You used to just check with the Post Office and they'd say yay or nay. Nowadays you have to inform your local council, who will do a search to see if this name is going to cause any issues (like, is it the same name as the house next door?). You have to wait a few weeks to hear, and the council take care of all the data-bases which log addresses. There is a fee (or at least, there was a fee with our council when we did it 3 years ago).

 

[CliffordPope]

From the Royal Mail Code of Practice:

"Where a house is numbered by
the local authority and
has also been given a
name by the occupant, Royal Mail will in
clude only the number in the postal
address. This is because the use of
the number rather than a name enables
the property to be located easily.
If a building is not numbered and the o
ccupant wishes to change its name,
they should first advise their local authority of their intentions. The postal
address will be amended to reflect the
change provided the new name will not
lead to confusion or cause offence.
This will not require consultation"

I think once you have a number you cannot change or lose it. You can add a name if you like, but it will have no official recognition, and as the Code says, won't be used by officialdom.

 

[88v8]

Our previous house had a name. And a number. We used both, and so eventually did many correspondents.

But it didn't have a nameplate. That was attached to the front gate which fell apart in less then a year, and in 30 years I never replaced it. So when we moved I brought the (copper, epousse) nameplate with us and it's now attached to the door of one of our sheds.

So by all means use the name. But as has been said, you are stuck with the number.

Ivor

 

[Tc345]

We had to change our house name and it was done via the local council and I think cost about £50. After a bit of research we reinstated a previous house name that was last used in the 50's.

We have a number and a name (and also two possible postcodes, one of which is for our house and only our house!) which has the potential for confusion. Thankfully all mail, GPS and google etc go by the house name and our 'personal' postcode.

 

[noj]

Our place is locally know as 'The Cottage', but on the official database it's numbered - in the late 19th Century census entries it was just Number 18 - it's now Number 226!

 

[Flyfisher]

We had the reverse problem of trying to get a name removed from the official database of addresses. Once upon a time, part of our house was rented out and the tenant was given the address [house name] Cottage. I'm pretty sure no paperwork would have been volunteered would have been done but over time this became the generally known address of the 'cottage', even to the extent that we now have two council tax accounts, so at some point it certainly became official.

You can imagine the hassle we've had with TV Licencing, though despite all their threatening letters they've yet to actually visit us to 'interview under caution'. :twisted:

We've just learned to live with it.

 

[malcolm]

My house was removed from the post office registry when it stopped being a pub. It took many attempts over a year to get it listed again. My bank would auto-correct the address and sent everything to the same address in the next town, while the court threats from British Gas over the previous occupant's bill would arrive perfectly addressed to me.

I got myself address listed again by the post office without the name.

 

[Minkeycat]

Thanks all. We'll probably just get a sign made up and put the original name back on the house for now and start using it ourselves. We'll register the name officially at a later date.

 

[eezageeza]

We have a business attached to our house, and every few years we get a letter from Royal Mail asking us to confirm that the address on their postcode database is correct. We amended it a few years ago to better reflect where we are, and its that address that now appears on the database. No reference to local council, or anything else.

FWIW, the house had a number many years ago, was given a name by one of the previous residents, maybe 30 years ago, and the number has not been used since.

 

[CliffordPope]

There appears to be no single method of officially recording or changing a name, but the ultimate proof of the pudding is determined by Royal Mail useage.
Whatever the local authority think they are regulating, in practice it is all trumped by the post office, and talking nicely to your local postman seems to be the best way of communicating and getting anything changed.
We have a cottage, on the opposite side of the road from the house, but always included in the property title. The road ran through the farmyard until 1974 when it stopped being a farm. It's actually older than the house, and was the original farmhouse. It has been in intermittant occupation since about 1880, known simply as Housename Cottage (in Welsh, Bwthyn), and has at times had this address in use.

When we came here it had recently been occupied, but after a few years of only junk mail the postman asked if it was occupied and said he would cancel separate deliveries as we only used it as an annexe. Thirty years later my mother came to live there, and the address was reinstated by the postman, and added to the electoral roll by the council. Our daughter lived there for a couple of years, and after a while again the postman similarly asked if it was still occupied, so we agreed it was not. After several Nil electoral roll returns the council removed it again.

The remainder of our address changes every few years at the whim of the post office for their own convenience. There were three different locality names and postcodes in use in 1985, now only one postcode but two localities. They are in different PO delivery counties, but the county administrative border has not changed.

Some organisations still use an old address database, which causes problems occasionally, as no one ever believes that it is possible to change your address without actually moving physically. TV licensing did actually send a detector van out once and spent a long time searching for a non-existent address. Sometimes out of devilment I'm tempted to disappear and change address again.

The whole thing is endlessly complicated. People in a town with a street number cannot believe it

 

[Lostgardensof]

I am glad we are not the only people struggling with this. Despite being the only house on one side of the road and having a massive sign with the house name in the window hermes still can't find us for deliveries which is proving really annoying. Royal mail have worked it out with no problems but I might contact them to check what we are listed as.

 

[eezageeza]

You can check your postcode / address with Royal Mail here :
https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode

 

[Flyfisher]

Some organisations still use an old address database, which causes problems occasionally,

Yes, we've had that too, many times, and it always seems to be company vehicles rather than personal satnavs. Our house and a few neighbours are on the outskirts of the village and served by a private lane. Because it serves a few houses it has a name but that name seems not to be on all satnav maps. An added complication is that there is a public footpath across the fields at the bottom of the lane. So, satnavs without the lane in their database guides people to the nearest possible road location, which happens to be in the village at the end of the footpath. So we've had many delivery drivers telephone in frustration saying they can't find us because they're in the village, in a different road, about 300 yards away by footpath!

The whole thing is endlessly complicated. People in a town with a street number cannot believe it

We've had all manner of fun over the years with bureaucracies unable to deal with anything slightly out of the ordinary. I could relate the recent saga about changing our energy supplier only to discover that the 'address of supply' for our electricity meter on the database, used by all energy companies these days, was one of our neighbours and that the meter in our house was not actually listed! Fun and games. :lol:

 

[88v8]

Getting the central database changed is difficult.
Our energy supplier had an address with no village name, just our Postal Town which is 5 miles away. When we needed an engineer, this caused endless problems.
Eventually because of this I changed energy suppliers, and when signing up I made a fuss about the address. They have now managed to inset the village name but still with the (irrelevant) Postal Town.
Most couriers now find us, partly because I have included directions... 300yds up lane on right... in most of the internet addresses I have filled in including eBay.
Unfortunately we are the centre of the postcode for a Lane of numberless houses, so they also find us when looking for various other addresses. Trudge up the drive, climb the steps "Is this Dahdidah House?" "No, it's up/down the Lane x yards". "Humph."

Ivor

 

[philpjuk100]

Bought under the "right to buy" and now named "Fircum hall"

 

[Owain]

You can use any house name you want in the format

Mr & Mrs Minkeycat
Minkey Hall
2 Boggin Road
Naffsbury-on-Stink, etc.

as 2 Boggin Road remains your official address.

If you want to delete the building number 2 and replace it with a building name then you need to go through your local council's Street Naming and Addressing Officer who will update the official Gazetteer - except that as stated above, removing building numbers is generally not done.

Or you could change your surname by deed poll to Minkeycat de Minkeyhall

(Incidentally, if you want the telephone number Naffsbury-on-Stink two three, you can do this through C*Net Collectors Network.
https://www.ckts.info/directory/europe/uk/

 

[Owain]

The whole thing is endlessly complicated. People in a town with a street number cannot believe it

Just wait until you encounter Scottish (particularly, Edinburgh) flat numbering!

 

[CliffordPope]

Just wait until you encounter Scottish (particularly, Edinburgh) flat numbering!

That's just reminded me of delivering furniture to housing estates in Ceredigion. Yes, the houses all have numbers, but no, they aren't in geographical order, but the random order in which they were built !

 

[Owain]

That's just reminded me of delivering furniture to housing estates in Ceredigion. Yes, the houses all have numbers, but no, they aren't in geographical order, but the random order in which they were built !

That's so, um, typical of the locality.