rosebubble
Freshman Member
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2023
- Professional Status
- General Public
- State
- Canada
Please bear with me explaining the specifics. I will be very greatful for any insight any of you might have. Noone seems to have ever heard of our predicament.
We purchased an office condo. Our USPS suite number is #504. We are the end unit of 5 units numbered USPS suites #500 - #504. A person later purchased the condo unit next door to ours which was numbered #503.
This person closed escrow and then asked us if they could take over use of our suite number because all of the USPS suite numbers on all of the units on our floor are one digit off from the condo plan filed with the city and they wanted their numbers to "match up." They wanted us to go to USPS and have them create a new address (#505) and use that for our property. We considered the request despite the hassle, but ultimately ran into what a serious headache it would be, were concerned about what problems it might cause that we could not anticipate - and did not agree with their assessment that this was necessary in the first place.
We were also in the middle of renovations and permitting with the City using suite #504 (as had previous owners of our unit when they did renovations).
The neighbor completely diregarded us and responded with "Well, I guess we will both have to be suite #504 until you figure our how to be #505." (Wow. Nice to meet ya, neighbor...)
I did a lot of digging into building records and found the source of the discrepancy. It turns out that when our building was originally built about 40 years ago, there were 4 units on our floor. Around 2013, a 5th unit was added.
Originally (since the early 80's when the building was first built) the condo unit numbers aligned with the USPS suite numbers:
The discrepancy occurred because the condo unit numbering submitted on the revised condo plannumbered all of the units on the floor as 5-1 through 5-5 which put it out of alignment with the history of the building and USPS designations made for the new unit.
So currently the condo unit and the USPS suite number are all one digit off from the USPS suite numbers.
Properties on our floor have been bought and sold without issue in the 10 years since this discrepancy was introduced. Even the real estate agent for the neighbor told us there were no problems for them with title or closing.
So, this person has insisted on taking over our suite number and has claimed it as their "legal address" despite have zero evidence to support that claim. Clearly, it is the standard to create USPS addresses based on condo unit numbers when a building is first created, but I have asked every governing body involved in all of this and none of them are aware of any requirement that USPS suite assignments have to be changed to match a condo plan unit number revision.
So, literally, the numbers on the units on our floor are now: 500, 501, 502,503, 504 & 504. I will skip all of the aggressive attempts they have made to try to force the change on us.
Our postal delivery person is aware of the situtation and gives the neighbor items addressed as #504 if they have the neighbor's name on it, and gives us everything else. We walk next door and put items that are not ours through their mail slot.
No one can or is willing to help us, nor does anyone seem to have any power to stop what this person is doing. So far we have tried:
Here are my questions:
This has been such a nuisance and a waste of time. I'd very much appreciate your input if you have any.
We purchased an office condo. Our USPS suite number is #504. We are the end unit of 5 units numbered USPS suites #500 - #504. A person later purchased the condo unit next door to ours which was numbered #503.
This person closed escrow and then asked us if they could take over use of our suite number because all of the USPS suite numbers on all of the units on our floor are one digit off from the condo plan filed with the city and they wanted their numbers to "match up." They wanted us to go to USPS and have them create a new address (#505) and use that for our property. We considered the request despite the hassle, but ultimately ran into what a serious headache it would be, were concerned about what problems it might cause that we could not anticipate - and did not agree with their assessment that this was necessary in the first place.
We were also in the middle of renovations and permitting with the City using suite #504 (as had previous owners of our unit when they did renovations).
The neighbor completely diregarded us and responded with "Well, I guess we will both have to be suite #504 until you figure our how to be #505." (Wow. Nice to meet ya, neighbor...)
I did a lot of digging into building records and found the source of the discrepancy. It turns out that when our building was originally built about 40 years ago, there were 4 units on our floor. Around 2013, a 5th unit was added.
Originally (since the early 80's when the building was first built) the condo unit numbers aligned with the USPS suite numbers:
- 5-1 (USPS suite #501)
- 5-2 (USPS suite #502)
- 5-3 (USPS suite #503) (bought by neighbor)
- 5-4 (USPS suite #504) (our property)
The discrepancy occurred because the condo unit numbering submitted on the revised condo plannumbered all of the units on the floor as 5-1 through 5-5 which put it out of alignment with the history of the building and USPS designations made for the new unit.
So currently the condo unit and the USPS suite number are all one digit off from the USPS suite numbers.
- 5-1 (USPS suite #500) (new suite)
- 5-2 (USPS suite #501)
- 5-3 (USPS suite #502)
- 5-4 (USPS suite #503) (bought by neighbor)
- 5-5 (USPS suite #504) (our property)
Properties on our floor have been bought and sold without issue in the 10 years since this discrepancy was introduced. Even the real estate agent for the neighbor told us there were no problems for them with title or closing.
So, this person has insisted on taking over our suite number and has claimed it as their "legal address" despite have zero evidence to support that claim. Clearly, it is the standard to create USPS addresses based on condo unit numbers when a building is first created, but I have asked every governing body involved in all of this and none of them are aware of any requirement that USPS suite assignments have to be changed to match a condo plan unit number revision.
So, literally, the numbers on the units on our floor are now: 500, 501, 502,
Our postal delivery person is aware of the situtation and gives the neighbor items addressed as #504 if they have the neighbor's name on it, and gives us everything else. We walk next door and put items that are not ours through their mail slot.
No one can or is willing to help us, nor does anyone seem to have any power to stop what this person is doing. So far we have tried:
- Going to our HOA president who claimed he had no authority over the suite number an owner chose
- We went to USPS who directed us to the Postal Inpector
- We filed a complaint with the Postal Inspector (no response despite repeated follow ups over months - likely because our situation is an outlier and no theft or fraud is at play). Apparently, it is not illegal to use someone else's address, and label your property with someone else's address as long as you are not committing fraud. (If you know of any law that says otherwise, I would LOVE to know about it.)
- Tried to file a civil harassment claim and the City told us their was no point because our claim did not involved threats to life or physical assault.
- Called our local police department, who said they have no jurisidiction.
- We spoke to two real estate attorneys who said they could not think of any recourse except filing an injunction which would apparently cost 5-10k to do. They both confirmed that they were aware that USPS suite numbers can get out of sync with condo unit numbers for a variety of reasons, but had never heard of anyone making it an issue, especially when making it an issue means literally comandeering someone else's mailing address. They also suggested suiing the HOA, which we do not want to do because it would harm everyone who owns a unit in the building and our budget is already tight with repairs needed on an old building.
- Most recently, because our businesses both involve the handling of HIPAA protected information, we filed a complaint with the professional governing board about this person because we had a close call with a HIPAA violation (and the neighbor is responsible for this added risk because they caused this issue by abandoing their existing USPS suite number and duplicating ours.) We also gave them the opportunity to stop using our suite number before filing that complaint. I am not optimistic about them taking a stand on this based on all of my other experience with this.
- The City Dev Services (in charge of permitting) and the Tax Assessor's office pointed at each other as being responsible for "assigning addresses" - and neither was willing to make any statement on what they deemed as a "civil dispute." Neither of these agencies have *any* connection with USPS.
Here are my questions:
- First - just curious, have you ever heard of a situation like this? Where someone moves in and unilaterally decides its okay to duplicate someone else's in-use suite number?
- Are you aware of recourse that could help us defend ourselves and put a stop to them duplicating our suite number? Or organizations we could reach out to or file a complaint with? (That we haven't already)
- Is there any relevant input you might have that may help deal us with this?
This has been such a nuisance and a waste of time. I'd very much appreciate your input if you have any.
