What does a UK Process Server do?

Service of process is the procedure employed to give legal notice to a person (defendant etc.) of a court or administrative body’s exercise of its jurisdiction over that person so as to enable that person to respond to the proceeding before the court, body or other tribunal. Usually, notice is furnished by delivering a set of court documents to the person to be served. This is done by Process Servers.

Service

Each jurisdiction has rules regarding the means of service of process. Typically, a summons and related documents must be served upon the defendant personally, or in some cases upon another person of suitable age and discretion at the person’s abode or place of business or employment. In some cases, service of process may be effected through the mail as in some small claims court procedures. In exceptional cases, other forms of service may be authorized by procedural rules or court order, including service by publication when an individual cannot be located in a particular jurisdiction.

Proper service of process initially establishes personal jurisdiction of the court over the person served. If the defendant ignores further pleadings or fails to participate in the proceedings, then the court or administrative body may find the defendant in default and award relief to the claimant, petitioner or plaintiff. Service of process must be distinguished from service of subsequent documents (such as pleadings and motion papers) between the parties to litigation.

In ancient times the service of a summons was considered a royal act that had serious consequences. It was a summons to come to the King’s Court and to respond to the demand of a loyal subject. In ancient Persia, failure to respond to the King’s summons meant a sentence of death. Today the penalty for ignoring a summons is usually a default money judgment that must be subsequently enforced.

In England and Wales, the rules governing service of documents are contained within Part 6 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 [1].

Service on a defendant who resides in a country outside the jurisdiction of the Court must comply with special procedures prescribed under the Hague Service Convention, if the recipient’s country is a signatory.

Personal service is service of process directly to the (or a) party named on the summons, complaint or petition. In most lawsuits, personal service is required to prove service. In most Anglo-American legal systems the service of process is effectuated by a process server who must be an adult and (in most jurisdictions) not a party to the litigation.

Substituted Service

When an individual party to be served is unavailable for personal service, many jurisdictions allow for substituted service. Substituted service allows the process server to leave service documents with another responsible individual such as cohabiting adults or an employer. Substituted service often requires a serving party show that ordinary service is impracticable and that substituted service will reach the party and effect notice.

Unusual Trace: From Salgado Investigations Case Files

Unusual Trace: From Salgado Investigations Case Files

I was having my sunday dinner one weekend, when I received a telephone call from a lady who was out of her mind with worry about her eldery father who had gone missing from her house in Devon earlier in the day.

My new client explained that her mother had died a couple of years ago and that her father was often confused and did not remember that she had died. My client believed that her father may have made his way back to his old house in Redhill in his car.

The client requested that I drive to Redhill and locate her father while they would be making their way from Devon but that it would take them at least 3 hours to get there.

After agreeing a price I arrived at her father’s old house in 20 minutes. The current occupants informed me that an old man had knocked on the door but they had turned him away.

I began driving and checking every pub in the area. After 20 minutes of this, the client rang me to tell me that her father had rung her mobile from a BT phone box but that she did not get the number.

After a bit of research with BT, who it seemed had taken most of the public phone boxes out of the area, i discovered that there were only two left in that area.

Naturally i eventualy found the old man at the second phone box and waited with him for approximately 2 hours until the my client and her brother arrived.

I went home after a job well done.

The modern private investigator

The modern private investigator

It’s night in the city and a female shape is silhouetted through the glass of a second floor office door.

“My husband’s cheating on me,” she said as she came through the door.

“Why would he do that?” A guy would have to be crazy to cheat on a dame like this. Her slinky red dress showed she had all the right equipment to keep anybody at home.

It’s the classic opening for a thousand private eye stories, novels and movies. People haven’t changed, but techniques today are different.

PIs, or private investigators, used to be mostly retired police officers, just like the movies and many of them are working out of a home office that is run by their wives while they are working.

More and more these days, Private Investigators are from “civvie street”, normal people who have drifted into it. In a busy modern suburb of London in Croydon, Jorge Salgado-Reyes, a former Loss Prevention Investigator for well known High Street companies who works primarily through contacts with Solicitors or other personal contacts. asked the client “How did you find my number?”

Surveillance is the major tool, and today it is most likely done with a stabilized video camera with an 800x lens taken through a privacy glass from a nondescript van.

Salgado says working for other companies as an employee didn’t work for him. “I love investigation work. Being a PI is little different from working for the retail industry, You’re still a fact finder who is getting to the truth. I leave it to the client and the lawyers to draw conclusions.”

“You have to know the law, and whether you are gathering evidence for a civil suit, or proof beyond a reasonable doubt for criminal activity.” explains Jorge Salgado-Reyes.

PIs do not have to be licensed at present but that will all change in the near future and it will drive the cowboys underground.

My bread and butter between surveillance jobs is process serving in the London & South East areas. “I do the more difficult cases,” he said.

Like the fictional PI, the real-life investigator sometimes has to question the motives of the client, especially with tracing and matrimonial cases.

“I ask, ‘What do you want to do with the information?’ ” Jorge Salgado-Reyes said. “If they say they want to get a divorce I tell them you don’t need an investigator for that. The courts don’t seem to care, so why waste the money proving something you don’t need? Most just need to know for their own peace of mind.”

“I usually get approached by individuals who need to know 100% that their partner is cheating,” Jorge Salgado-Reyes said of matrimonial cases. “They think something is going on but they’re not sure. I provide that peace of mind.”

It’s a shadowy world, and most investigators like it that way. “It’s not a television show, it’s real,” Jorge Salgado-Reyes said. “I became a PI one year ago. What a great career it is, and I look forward to going to work. Every day is different.”