In normal circumstances 3 attempts within the Capital City region. (Note: Fees are charged per address). Within country or remote areas these attempts are limited depending on distance the agent has to travel. Accordingly it is important that you supply as much information about the respondent’s routine if known (ie: Works from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM) as this will reduce unnecessary attempts at your expense. Ensure the address is correct to avoid additional address charges. An incorrect street number could cost an additional fee.

If for any reason we are unable to serve the respondent, our office will complete an “Affidavit of Attempted Service”.  This affidavit is vital for your case, and you will then need to present this affidavit to the court. This affidavit is evidence that you have attempted to serve your respondent. If the respondent avoids service the court may make a decision to proceed with your case, or it may provide you with further direction to serve the document by way of Substituted Service. Our office can explain this further should the document not be served. The court will also assist and provide direction on the hearing date. You will need to proceed with an “Applicantion in a Proceeding”  We can provide you with links to assist you in this process

We could answer this question with “How long is a piece of string?” Service time varies, and can take 24 hours or it can take a couple of weeks. Terms like, ‘Standard Service’  ‘Routine Service’ will be used. These services are normally attempted within 5 business days. I however you need documents service quicker than this, you then get into the ‘Urgent’ services. These fees can vary depending on how urgent the document is. It is also important to know, ‘urgent service’ doesn’t guarantee service, it only guarantees that the agent will attend in the agreed time as per your quote. Our agents will attend several times over a two week period. Within this time the document is normally served or evidence is obtained to establish that the respondent may be avoiding.

This is the preferred method. Although there may be a printing charge, by the time you print the document yourself, then post the document, (either standard or express post) the chances are it will still be more economical to email the document. 

If the document is large, not only you will be paying the postage at your end, we will also need to charge the postage to our agent, or pay them to collect the document. Again, emailing the document will not only speed the process up, the costs will be relatively the same.  

On some occasions we do have people who wish to avoid service.  There are rules within the service Act which allow automatic substituted service where the document can be left at the address in a special fashion. Our office can explain these to you. Unfortunately certain documents do not have this allowance. It is then up to you personally to prove to the court that the respondent is avoiding service and that the only way to get the document to the person is by an Order through the court for Substituted service.

In order to apply to the court, we will first need to make a number of attempts, to the address, leave messages, attempt to call the defendant, and most importantly, CONFIRM THE ADDRESS.  Unless the address is confirmed the likely hood of the order being approved by the court will be very slim at best.

Once the address has been confirmed and sufficient attempts have been made (3 or so) the agent will complete an affidavit of attempted service.  This affidavit will then need to be presented to the court with a request to have the document served in an alternative fashion. This method could be: i) Post, ii) Leaving it at the address with another resident of age, iii) Affixing to the door or iv) Leaving it in the mail box, or v) email or another suggestion made by the court, or iv) All of above.

Once this order is obtained from the court, we can then proceed with a new service as allowed/instructed by the court.

Once you receive our affidavit of service, take a copy of it for your own personal record. You then need to up load the affidavit to your court portal. This is your responsiblity. If you don’t have a court portal, you will need to either email the affidavit to the court, or request the original from our office so you can physically lodge it at the court. We would suggest for easy of lodgement and processing your documentation that you open a court portal account. 

Don’t panic. Our office will keep an electronic copy for 6 months. Just contact our office, and we will email this to you. If it is outside this period of time, our office can arrange a new affidavit from the agent. There will however be a fee of approximately $30 to obtain a replacement affidavit from the process server. 
In relation to family law documents, the ‘acknowledgment of service’ which may have been signed by the respondent can NOT be reproduced, however our affidavit should be sufficient to get service accepted.