Tracking updates after retention

[Alderpoint]

Sent a rather important letter almost two weeks ago now.
On 4th July, tracking says it is on retention at Wolverhampton DO due to "request not to deliver mail to the property ... today".
It still says that.
Question: when they do finally deliver it, does the tracking actually get updated to tell me it has been delivered?
Thanks in advance...

[yellowbelly]

Sent a rather important letter almost two weeks ago now.
On 4th July, tracking says it is on retention at Wolverhampton DO due to "request not to deliver mail to the property ... today".
It still says that.
Question: when they do finally deliver it, does the tracking actually get updated to tell me it has been delivered?
Thanks in advance...

Was it to a business address by any chance? If I recall correctly DWP have a lot of mail handling addresses at Wolverhampton.

If that's the case it may have been held as a retention due to them perhaps not accepting mail on Saturdays, then delivered on Monday.

The issue with DWP and other large organisations like HMRC and Passport Office etc. is that they often don't accept each item individually. It's some sort of mass process that eventually appears on the tracking system. Would have thought it would have had some sort of update by now though.

There's been lots of similar queries about mail delivery to those types of organisations in the past on this forum.

If it's not one of those large organisations but a smaller one that was closed on a Saturday, the same applies, however
postcodes:

Wolverhampton NE DO (WV11, WV12)
Wolverhampton NW DO (WV6-WV9)

are suffering delays at this time.

[Alderpoint]

HMRC CGT. I need to know whether it has been delivered as I need to pay them within 60 days of the house sale. But if they haven't got my notification due to postal delays, I'll be a little upset if they try to fine me.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

HMRC is legendary for this. They receive such an astronomical mountain of bulk mail daily that it can take days—if not weeks—for their sluggish internal systems to actually register that a letter has arrived. You are far better off checking your online tax account, or bracing yourself to call them directly to see if it has been logged. In 99.9% of cases, the post has actually arrived perfectly on time, but you are entirely at the mercy of their back-office database catching up.

Wolverhampton Delivery Office and Mail Centre acts as the primary gateway for HMRC’s standard inbound mail. If you send a letter to HMRC using one of their standard non-geographic "BX" postcodes (like the ubiquitous BX9 1AS), it is routed directly to Wolverhampton. Once it arrives at the Wolverhampton facility, it isn't loaded onto a postie's sack for street delivery. Instead, it is collected in bulk by a third-party contractor (specifically the EDM Group, who operate a massive, secure digital mailroom hub in Wolverhampton). This is exactly why Royal Mail tracking often shows highly confusing updates for HMRC letters. It is completely normal for a tracked item to get stuck for days on a status like "request not to deliver mail to the property", or "Collected and Signed at Your Customer Service Point Wolverhampton DO"

Fortunately, when it comes to meeting official tax deadlines, a standard proof of posting is usually all that is legally required to keep you in the clear. You rarely need to worry about providing absolute proof of receipt—just prove you sent it, and let HMRC take their time sorting through the mail bags.

[Alderpoint]

Thanks. Unfortunately this is something which cannot be done online so I am at the mercy of the postal service. I'll just hope they get around to handling it eventually.