Sir – Other correspondents have already related cases in the last few weeks concerning postal delays, in delivery or collection, due to inefficiency in the sorting office. I have a case to add.

Last week an important communication from my solicitor was delivered on June 3, it should have reached me a week earlier, having been posted on May 27.

As it had the firm’s address very clearly printed on the envelope it must have been sitting around in some sorting office most of the time.

Quite late on June 3, having been told by a neighbour that she was worried because she hadn’t had any post that day and had been expecting something important, I had a look to see if there was anything that had come through the letter-box of our block of flats.

I found a whole bundle of mail, addressed to several flats, which must have been put through the letter-box some time before — we have an occasional relief postman who has never been told how to get in (not all the letters were delayed ones — just a whole lot of them were addressed to other flats and were normal mail).

Consequently the move I am planning to another flat has been delayed by a week as I have not yet finalised a “completion date” with the solicitors.

For me this is a tiresome inconvenience but it could be disastrous for someone else — perhaps a delayed benefit payment, a job interview, a reminder of an unpaid bill, notice of a visit from a debt collector? As it is, I am just very cross!

Eileen Davies, Oxford