At Arkline we frequently receive process serving instructions that are out of the ordinary, requiring our company to go above and beyond to ensure documents are served for our clients. Here is an example where we have managed to complete process serving instructions under challenging circumstances.
Arkline was instructed by a prestigious law firm to serve an individual with an order to attend court for questioning. The individual who was being served was renowned to be very evasive and difficult to meet with. The debtor co-owned a salon with family members and over the course of twelve months the law company had found it extremely difficult to serve her with the documents. When our agent was initially instructed he attempted to serve the individual at the salon and was informed by staff that they did not know of the debtor. Our office based enquiries then established that the debtor had changed her name and appearance dramatically in order to not be recognised. Our agent re attended the salon and on this occasion the employees of the salon became very hostile and aggressive towards our agent and wouldn’t allow him to serve the defendant. Arkline therefore instructed a new agent who would not be recognised and armed with the information gathered from the office enquiries, was able to personally serve the debtor.
Debtor did not attend court
Unfortunately, the debtor did not attend court and due to the hostility that our agents had encountered, we prepared an affidavit making an application for substituted service of the order. The application requested that our agent was able to use letterbox service after business hours on the grounds of safety. The application was granted by the judge due to the peculiar circumstances and the defendant was then served by letterbox service and the hearing date is pending. The client needless to say was delighted with the result after a difficult case.
