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Tenants Leave All Kinds Of Important Stuff Behind When They Move House

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When tenants move house, it turns out all kinds of bits and pieces don’t quite make it on to the moving van.

Once precious clothes, toys and even animals are among the debris we leave behind when we head off to our new homes.

Among the most worrying things we leave behind are personal documents - one in 12 landlords say they’ve found bank statements, chequebooks and even passports after renters had moved on.

The Royal Mail and the National Landlords Association (NLA) asked 1,300 landlords what their tenants had left, with cars, TVs, exercise equipment, ferrets and snakes among the items abandoned by renters.

The NLA warned that renters, who often move on after a year or so, are at risk of identity theft if they don’t keep a handle on their personal documents or keep their address details up to date.

Richard Lambert, chief executive of the NLA, said: “Recent ONS figures show that application fraud cases - when fraudsters open an account using fake or stolen documents in someone else’s name - rose by 14% last year.

"This means that renters who don’t update their address details, or take out a redirection service to their new home, are putting themselves at risk of identity theft leading to financial fraud.”

Image: WestEnd61/REX Shutterstock