WHAT IS PROCESS SERVING
Process serving is the formal hand delivery of legal documents to a party or person in a legal matter. While hand delivery personally to the party or person is preferable, different Courts and Tribunals allow variations to the exact manner in which the documents are delivered. Some documents may be left with a co-resident at a home address. Some documents can be left at a party’s place of business with a person in charge of the business.
DO I NEED TO SERVE MY DOCUMENTS
There are an ever expanding list of Courts and Tribunals across the states and territories of Australia. For the most part actions taken in these Courts and Tribunals need to be personally brought to the attention of the other person. These documents need to be served upon the other party or parties in the matter, once they have been filed in the Court. Depending upon the type of documents, the Court and jurisdiction, different standards are required as to service to satisfy the Court or Tribunal that the documents have been appropriately brought to the attention of the other parties. If you’re unclear on the requirements as to service for your matter, please clarify the detail with the Court or Tribunal.
SERVICE TIME LIMITS
In the interest of procedural fairness, each Court or Tribunal has an expectation of bringing the matter to the attention of the party/s within a particular time frame of the next hearing date or step in a proceeding. If the other parties haven’t been made aware of the matter or hearing with sufficient time per the requirements of the Court or Tribunal, the Court may not allow your matter to proceed on the next hearing date or procedural step.
WHAT HAPPENS IF MY DOCUMENTS WEREN’T SERVED IN TIME
If you believe you have run out of time to adequately serve documents on the other party/s, this can usually be easily corrected by communicating with the Court. A letter or email to Court advising you have not served the documents in sufficient time prior to the hearing date and request for an adjourned date, will usually see the Court relist your matter for a later date, to allow sufficient time to serve the documents. If you believe an extension of time is required to allow service of the documents, the extension should be obtained from the Court prior to forwarding the documents to be served. There is usually no fee to adjourn the matter to a forward date.
HOW DOES THE COURT KNOW WHEN THE DOCUMENT WERE SERVED
After the process server has completed service of the documents on the other party/s, the process server will produce an Affidavit in the form required by the Court or Tribunal. The Affidavit is referred to as an Affidavit of Service and it will detail the time, date, address, documents served and name of the person served. The document will also be witnessed by a person who meets the witnessing requirements for the type of document. More often than not, this is a Justice of the Peace. The production of the Affidavit of Service is included in the cost to serve the documents. Once the Affidavit of Service has been produced you will need to supply it to the Court to evidence the service. If your matter is before a Court with an online portal, such as the Federal Circuit Court, the Affidavit of Service should be uploaded via the Court portal in advance of the hearing date, then take the original Affidavit of Service with you to Court on the day of the hearing.
WHAT IF THE PERSON ISN’T AT HOME WHEN THE PROCESS SERVER ATTENDS
Our price includes completing the address for service. What this means is that we will keep attending the address until we get the documents served, else identify an apparent reason the documents can not be served at the address. Reasons documents can not be served at the address may include the property is vacant, there are new tenants in residence or the property is in possession of a lender. In these or other such cases, we will revert to the client for potential alternate methods/locations to serve the documents.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO SERVE THE DOCUMENTS
The price to serve the documents depends primarily upon elements. Firstly whether the documents are required to be served personally or whether they can be left with another person at the address. Secondly, the address for service will modify the service price if the area is outside of the metropolitan areas. Detailed pricing can be found with our suburb/postcode search or by alphabetical lookup.
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO HAVE SOMEONE SERVED
Once a matter has been received for service, the matter is provided to our attending agent on the same day it is received. The first attendance will usually be within two to three days of receiving instructions, however some matters are attended on the first day they are received. Updates shall be forwarded via email as the service progresses.
HOW DO I GET MY DOCUMENTS TO THE PROCESS SERVER
The preferable way to forward the documents is via email, with the documents attached in PDF format. If you have filed your matter online via a Court or Tribunal portal, the portal will give you sealed copies of the documents ready to print and serve on the other party/s. These documents simply need to be attached to an instruction email to our office. An example of an instruction letter is detailed in our process serving Step-by-Step guide. If your documents have been filed manually at a Court or Tribunal, you will have them in hard copy form. The hard copies may be scanned into PDF files and emailed as described, or posted to our office along with an instruction letter. If posting the documents, please review the Step-by-Step guide for a example instruction letter and details of our postal address.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST
The cost for process serving across South East Queensland varies depending on the area and whether the personal service is required. The exact price can be reviewed in our service area. The price quoted is for a single address to complete service. Where a particular matter finds the service party can no longer be served at the initial address and a subsequent address must be attended, an additional charge would be applicable per address. There is no charge for printing the documents for service. If service must be completed within 48 hours of the documents being received an urgent loading may be applicable. Please locate the area for service of your documents on our Service Area page.