A process server is a professional who delivers legal documents giving notice of court actions to a defendant, on behalf of a claimant. They also make sure the delivery of the documents is effectively recorded.
Process serving deals with court orders such as enforcements, debt claims, eviction notices, and judgments, and brings them to the attention of the respondent. Many legal documents are required by law to be personally served, rather than posted.
In some ways, a process server carries out a similar role to a county court bailiff. However, there are serious advantages to hiring a professional process server to deliver your documents, rather than rely on bailiffs.
Speed
While their role can be broadly similar to a bailiff, process servers do not engage in debt collection. As such, they are not considered to be involved in a regulated activity. This means there are far fewer legal processes involved when delivering legal documents via a process server than there are when utilizing court bailiffs.
This in turn makes the process much quicker. The wait for action from a county court bailiff can be between four and seven weeks, whereas employing a private process server can mean procedures can commence as soon as possible.
Flexibility
One of the real advantages to hiring a private process server is you have direct control over their actions. Hiring a reputable server from a company such as EJM Investigations means the process will be dealt with in a transparent and flexible way.
We’ll work with you throughout the course of their job, and inform you once your service has been carried out. A good process server will monitor the case, ensuring that the process is concluded legally and swiftly, making sure that evidence, statements, and affidavits are complete.
When using county court bailiffs the process is largely out of the hands of the claimant. While you will still be informed once the documents have been served, this may not be immediate and you won’t have the same transparency and level of contact you would with a process sever.
Tracing
It is sometimes the case that the person being served the documents can be evasive, intentionally or otherwise. Whether the intended recipient lives a busy life between addresses, or is deliberately elusive in order to stall proceedings, being unable to find the respondent can cause a process to be massively delayed.
Probably the greatest advantage to using a professional process server rather than resorting to court bailiffs is the option to trace the respondent. Experienced process servers are well versed in tracing and the various legal procedures attached.
Those that are also experienced private investigators, or work with them, are particularly efficient at resolving the issue of a hard to track down respondent. At EJM Investigations we’ve considerable experience of tracing in tandem with our process servers.
Effective and speedy tracing can often be crucial in particular cases, as in certain proceedings documents need to be delivered and received within a strict time frame.
Tracing is relatively quick and inexpensive and can make any legal proceedings progress more smoothly than they would otherwise.
Please contact us of you need assistance from our experienced team in this area – call us on 01772 334700.