I’ll put my hands up, I’m not the best at opening letters.

Gone are the days that you get something interesting in the post (In fact, the last decent one was from a penpal in the 90’s), and now all you get are bank statements, junk mail and bills.

If a letter seems different to the others or looks important, I will open it. It’s not a case of me ignoring bills, but more often or not, me opening the letter has wasted my time.

What to look out for

However, got a council letter in the post today. You can tell because it’s brown and has your local authority stamp on it.

I went to add it to the pile of letters “that I will get around to sorting one day” the bin and I clocked this on the envelope: ‘Avoid a £1,000 fine by responding now.’

Well, you don’t have to ask me twice. There is no way I’m handing that kind of money over to anyone, never mind to the bloody council.

What is the letter about?

Local authorities are checking who lives at the address to figure out who is eligible to vote. It’s called a household inquiry form.

This letter gets sent out every year (at different times depending on the council), so don’t panic if you haven’t had yours yet.

If you don’t respond to the letter by the deadline though, you could be fined £1,000.

EVEN IF YOU’VE VOTED AND THERE’S NO CHANGE, YOU STILL NEED TO REPLY. The letter will direct you to where you can do this, but for Wandsworth, where I live, you can do it online, calling or via text.

Oh, there will be an envelope provided with free postage if you don’t have the money to do the above.

It is going to tell you who they have on the list and will ask you to add people if new people have moved in (or some of you have moved out).

What I did

I texted the words NOCHANGE (don’t forget the security code that’s on the letter) to the number provided which took me all of 10 seconds and saved me £1,000.

Have you had your letter yet? Let me know in the comments.