House has mystery name....can I use it officially?

[groucho]

Vipers said:

I may be wrong, but I always thought house names had numbers as well.

My cousins address is

Mr xxxxx
"Mallards"
5 Winchester Way. Etc etc.

It's only called Mallards because it's opposite a duck pond (Ducks - Mallards).

I could be totally wrong though, but your idea does sound sort of posh, good luck.

Nope. Our house is just a name, not number or street. Just the house name and village.

[MajorProblem]

Our house had only a name for the first 150 years but as the street developed it now has to have a number as well.

[dav123a]

p1esk said:

Yes, I accept that.

What annoys me is all the faffing about needed to get a house name recognised, when there is an existing number.

It should be a simple matter to get a name added on request: it causes no problem, so long as the property already has a number, as ours does.

Seems fair enough to me if you want to add a name , £25 and a form. Doesn't sound like a nightmare , I believe there are certain checks to do.

[ozzuk]

Number is not required. I've done this on two houses but can't for the life of me remember how. I think it was via the post office. It official though, anytime you search (car insurance etc) the house names come up where the rest of the area have numbers.

[Dog Star]

We have to use the number AND the name, simply because our place is a semi and the pair of them are called "Green Mount" after the hill they're built on (I only found this out when looking at a local map from 1880, ten years before they were built). We share the same gates and the entire property shares the name. Stuff does get through to the right side of the semi with just the house name on it, but that's down to the postman.

[mr_spock]

I'd quite like to name our bungalow "The Bungalow". All the houses in our road are bungalows. Since the postie can't tell the difference between 1, 1a and 1b it can't make any difference to who gets which mail.

Or maybe call it:

Treetops');DROP TABLE addresses; --

to see what happens.

[p1esk]

dav123a said:

p1esk said:

Yes, I accept that.

What annoys me is all the faffing about needed to get a house name recognised, when there is an existing number.

It should be a simple matter to get a name added on request: it causes no problem, so long as the property already has a number, as ours does.

Seems fair enough to me if you want to add a name , £25 and a form. Doesn't sound like a nightmare , I believe there are certain checks to do.

Well OK, but it still looks like unnecessary formality to me. This is how I see it:

Most properties probably have a number, and no name. If a resident wants to add a house name and have it recognised it's easy for the local authority to do it; a minute or two with an appropriate computer terminal will get it into their system and it will automatically come up when they wish to write to us. Job done, and no need to make a big deal of it. The existing number is the important bit for location purposes, and that remains clear and usable.

Many properties, like ours, have a number and a name, though in our case the name is not officially recognised by our pompous local authority. Everybody else I've contacted (including several government departments) has accepted the name and they use it, which is fine. For example, it's now on my driving licence, and the V5 for my car. No problem.

In rural areas that are thinly populated, small communities like villages and hamlets may have a relatively small number of properties randomly positioned, and these may not lend themselves to logical numbering systems, so they simply have names. I think this is very nice, but it is not easy for anybody without local knowledge of the area to locate a property, and this is particularly unfortunate in the case of the emergency services.

Where a property has a only a name, and no number, I can see the need for formality if the owner wishes to change that name. That needs to be done officially, and communicated clearly to all interested parties, as it is the only means of identifying and locating that property.

Well, there you are; others may take a different view, but my attitude is that if somebody asks you for a bit of co-operation and help, and it's easy to provide that help, and it has no detrimental effects, you should co-operate and help them: but then I don't work in local government.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

Edited by p1esk on Wednesday 26th November 12:13

[Jobbo]

Aren't they being helpful by telling you how to go about it? It's not an unreasonable sum for them to have to do some otherwise unnecessary work at your request. Mind you, I'm wondering why it matters when all that will happen is your council tax bill each year will have the name on; it'll have no other bearing on your life or anyone else's use of the house name since it's the Royal Mail whose database determines addresses.

[p1esk]

Jobbo said:

Aren't they being helpful by telling you how to go about it? It's not an unreasonable sum for them to have to do some otherwise unnecessary work at your request. Mind you, I'm wondering why it matters when all that will happen is your council tax bill each year will have the name on; it'll have no other bearing on your life or anyone else's use of the house name since it's the Royal Mail whose database determines addresses.

Oh the LA 'system' has been explained, that's true enough; but I think they're making a meal of it. Of course it's not an important matter in the overall scheme of things, but it's easy to do and it isn't detrimental to anything, especially as we have a long established number.

If I wanted to just use the name, and ignore the number, that would be wrong, and I wouldn't do it.

As for the Post Office / Royal Mail database, I'm not too bothered what's in there. Practically all the people I'm dealing with have accepted the address I've given them, which is how it should be. What I don't want is people using an address they've obtained from some database, and then telling me what my address is, especially when, as has sometimes happened, it contains errors and omissions.

I appreciate that there are situations in which some procedure and system has to be followed in order to avoid confusion, but in my view this is not one of them.

[dav123a]

It may be something to do with your council tax why it needs to be written on a form. Are you not adding the new name to your address with the royal mail ?
I know someone who does street naming for a council , I wouldn't do the job for all the tea in China.