However, in this case, the Judge has commented that he cannot be satisified so as to be sure that the judgment debtors failure to attend was intentional, in the sense of being deliberate and contemptous, simply on the basis of the bare facts of non-attendance.

The judge has gone on to say that  in the absence of any other evidence such as express indication to the process server of intention to not attend, or communication to the Court, he is satisfied that an N79a Order should not be made and that another N39 should be issued with a new date to give him another chance to attend.

We have therefore been asked to serve another N39 on the debtor and make enquiries with him at the time as to whether or not he is planning on attending.

Has anyone come across this before? Are we now going to have to start asking respondents whether they are planning on attending the hearing dates?  Is the fact that they have been personally served with the documents and made aware of the date no longer enough to assume they have made an intentional decision not to attend?

This morning I have taken a call from a woman who opened her conversation like this ‘Hi, I would like to start a process serving company in XX like you and I was wondering if you could tell me how I go about attracting clients and the ways you get new clients so I can get some of my own’.

She seemed a little surprised when my reply was ‘So you would like me to give you my 10 years worth of experience that I have learnt through hard work so that you can set up in direct competition from me less than 20 miles from my office and effectively attempt to steal my clients?’

She genuinely could not see what I found so amusing / annoying about her call!

This just goes to show the mindset of some people who attempt to join our industry every year – they simply don’t have a clue!!!

Great route planner which allows you to enter multiple destinations and plan the quickest route!

why I (the company) had been texting her. It’s not unheard of for us to text

someone we are trying to serve, especially if they are being evasive and not

answering calls, so I assumed it must be to do with this. The woman was

unfortunately so worked up that i was having trouble understanding the

point she was trying to make, and I could not find any record of any of the

names she was telling me. I kept asking how she knew it was from us, but she

wouldn’t reply. Eventually in frustration she read the text out to me. It’s no

wonder I had no idea what she was talking about……. it wasn’t from us!!

Someone, who had finished the text with ‘from ASH Tracing Company’ was

asking her to text over the address of a friend of hers, advising they had

found her details in material left at a derelict house, and referring to some

fraudulent matter.

I could tell she didn’t believe me when I said I knew nothing about it, so in an

attempt to ‘clear our name’ I got to her give me the mobile number they

wanted her to text back to. It was, as predicted, nothing to do with us, and

the mobile number relates to a window fitting company in Birmingham. After

a lot of detective work, here’s what we think has happened…….

‘A window company has installed some windows at a property. The couple

who they installed for have done a runner. The window company have gone

back round to the house to try and obtain payment, and found it to be empty.

We think they have maybe ‘bin-dipped’ the rubbish which has been left at the

property and possibly found the occupants old telephone / address book.

The company have then started texting her contacts trying to find out where

she lives. And in their wisdom have decided the best way to get the info is to

pretend they are a tracing company……. unfortunately for us ASH (UK)

Process Servers Ltd was the closest she could find to ASH Tracing Company. ‘

The female in question did apologise, and thank me for being so helpful,

however I am wondering if I should contact ASH Tracing Company aka XXX

Windows and Conservatories, and advise them I will be sending them a bill

for my time……. and maybe offer to trace their PROPERLY debtor too?

http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Transgender-woman-banned-Hull-Sainsbury-s-store/story-15599308-detail/story.html

23 MARCH 2012 IN HISTORY

1861 – London’s first tramcars began operations. If only they could see ‘The Tube’ now!

1903 – The Wright brothers obtained an airplane patent.

1925 – The state of Tennessee enacted a law that made it a crime for a teacher in any state-supported public school to teach any theory that was in contradiction to the Bible’s account of man’s creation.

1957 – The U.S. Army sold the last of its homing pigeons.

1972 – Evel Knievel broke 93 bones after successfully jumping 35 cars.

1983 – Dr. Barney Clark died after 112 days with a permanent artificial heart

1989 – A 1,000-foot diameter asteroid missed Earth by 500,000 miles.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111907/Homeowner-sues-couple-sold-house-lying-Asbo-neighbour-hell.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Fortunately this week we have personally served on our longest standing case, which we have had since November 2011. To say this was an awkward one is an understatement – foreign paperwork, service outside England, on a person who is never at home and regularly travels the world. But, our persistence paid off, and I am ecstatic that we have now served!

And yesterday we had a bit of a challenge too. We had to arrange the meeting between a courier from Bristol and a process server in Bournemouth. Then, once service had been effected we had to get the proof of service to the agent, signed, and handed back to the courier to get it back to Bristol. With a lot of planning, and some friendly assistance from a local solicitor who kindly let us borrow their printer. the job was completed in record time, resulting in a very happy client!

And today we have more of the usual… paperwork arriving late from couriers, waiting for paperwork to be issued out of courts, together with an awful lot of updates going on for our ‘regular jobs’.

Who knows what next week will bring, but with everything going on this week, it’s safe to say next week will probably be more of the same! Can’t wait!!

http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=5573418821605142589&gid=1447297&type=member&item=94185803&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fmolawyersmedia.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F11%2F28%2Fyou%25E2%2580%2599ve-been-served-process-servers-use-politeness-persistence-guile-to-get-job-done%2F%3Fmid%3D53&urlhash=D3JF&goback=.gde_1447297_member_94185803

The full story can be read at  http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2012/01_-_January/NY_judge__Sloppy_service_has_legal_consequences/

It brought to mind an incident a couple of months ago, where a client of mine requested whether our agent had noted a specific vehicles registration number when serving some documents three months prior. I checked our Information Report, which did not show the information, and therefore telephoned the local process server to ask if he could check his notes just to make sure he hadn’t written it down and just not provided it to us. The response I got was ‘from three months ago? i don’t keep records that far back’. The process server in question had worringly not got any notes about the serve, nor a copy of the documents, nor even a copy of his proof of service. If this matter ever needed his subsequent attention, he would have absolutely no physical record of what happened, other than what he can remember – and bear in mind some process servers serve multiple people every day!

This prompted me to make some further enquiries with people I assume to be well regarded within the industry, and found that a vast number of process serving firms do not keep any record of what I would consider to be ‘basic information’. There is no record of attendances made, they are unable to produce either a copy of the documents served, or the proof that they did it, no physical description of the respondent, no record of any telephone numbers they may have obtained along the way…………. so in a nutshell, if for some reason the client misplaced the information sent to them at the time of service, it is now lost forever! I am unsure that if the process server was ever called to Witness, ‘I can’t remember’ would be a suitable answer to questioning.

So, for your peace of mind, I would like to confirm that ASH (UK) Process Servers Ltd hold scanned copies of the following records for every process serve we have conducted since the day we were established…..

1. A copy of the clients instructing letter
2. A copy of the documents we served
3. A copy of the Certificate, Statement, Sworn Affidavit, or other proof of service
4. A copy of the Information Report sent to the client (containing any useful telephone numbers, vehicle and respondent descriptions etc).

If you have ever misplaced anything we have provided to you, be rest assured that we will have a scanned copy of it which we can email you in an instant!