Service of Court Papers

We have a client who has failed to make payment and the account is now well overdue. Our problem is that although the client signed a Contract with us, the only contact that we have had with him is c/o a third party and also a property letting agency. The third party is now refusing to provide a legitimate address for the client and the letting agents, due to client confidentiality, are unable to.

My question is this, would service of any Court papers be valid if they were:

a) served on the third party (who's address is the one that is given on the Contract), OR

b) served on the letting agents for them to forward to their client, OR

c) served on both?

I would appreciate any assistance with this.

Thank you.

Regards
June Davison
B & C Building Contractors Ltd

Hi June,

We aren't solicitors so cant give a definitive answer, but we would suspect the answer to your question is no on all three counts.

Whilst you may be able to issue the proceedings by serving on one of the existing addresses, we have seen cases in the past when judgment is subsequently set aside by the court. This usually occurs when the debtor complains the documents have been served incorrectly and as such the debtor was unable to respond.

Given you do have some information for this individual, your best option may be to use an agent to trace a current address for the debtor prior to the issue of proceedings.

This way you remove the ambiguity and can be confident any judgment will not be reversed on a technicality.