This sometimes is an issue when serving a process within or or outside proceedings, that many defendants simply for one reason or the other say that they have not been served with documents. It is commonly asserted across defendants all over the country.

What is service?

Service is the legal concept of delivery of document to the relevant party and is regulated under Part 6 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 for civil matters excluding family and insolvency cases (but note Family Proceeding Rules 2010 and Insolvency Rules 2010 will now have similar provisions) This rule will only apply to matters within the issue of proceedings and beyond but in cases where there is no judicial process then it does not apply. Great care must be given to service issues and how they are evidenced on a file.

Problems with service?

Sometimes parties are obstructive and wish to try and delay or defeat the claim by stating that documents have not been delivered, i.e. never received. There are various methods around this but I wanted to highlight the use of modern technology in court is becoming more and more frequent and should always be considered with some imagination.

I will always recommend retaining electronic mail addresses, even social networking details as although they may change, my research (unconfirmed) shows that most people will use an address for at least 3-4 years if not longer. I myself have been using my own peronal email adress for almost 10 years. Why is this important you may ask?

A person who is avoiding proceedings or perhaps making excuses will have little chance of denying emails especially those that have not bounced back within the reject time frame of most servers. Couple that with a number of changes to civil procedure rules, the blackberry is being viewed in the court as real evidence of service. Although in some in cases further court directions are likely to be required and I recall on a few occassions in the High Court where my very own blackberry was requested to be seen by the judge as an issue of valid service arose.

Service does not mean that actual physical delivery ie the defendant actually has received, it more that likely that the document has been brought to the attention of the defendant in a way that he could not argue otherwise.

Thinking outside the box will allow often what appear to be insurmountable issues of service be overcome but a little ingenuity is likely.