Step-by-Step guide for Process Serving
for Family Law and Divorce matters
When you’re ready to proceed with having your documents served (instructing service), please follow the following steps:
1. File your documents with the Court. Once your documents are filed, they will have seal of the Court stamped on the documents. If using an online portal to file with the Court, you will usually need to firstly upload unsealed documents to the Court, then download a copy of the same documents that have been stamped with the Court Seal.
2. Prepare an instruction email/letter to our firm, to the following effect substituting the appropriate values:
| ATTN: ServeNow Dear Sir, I am the <applicant/plaintiff> <husband/wife> in the attached documents. Would you please attend to service of the <respondent/defendant> <Jane Lisa Smith>. The home address for the respondent is <123 Ocean Road, Shoreville, Qld, 4006>. The mobile telephone number for the respondent is <04xx xxx xxx>. I have attached a picture of the person to be served. Additional information which may assist you in effecting service is as follows: 1. The respondent leaves for work at <around 7.30am and returns home at 4.30pm>. 2. The respondent’s place of work is <ABC Dental at Sunnybank>. 3. The respondent is not aware of the filing or the documents. 4. The respondent drives a <dark blue Toyota Corolla> registration number <QAE456> My contact details are as follows: Postal Address: <PO Box 9999, Highgate, Qld, 4333>. Mobile: <04xx xxx xxx> Email: <john.smith@example.com> Would you please forward the sworn affidavit of service to my postal address at the completion of service. Kind Regards <John Smith> |
3. Attach the documents to the email which are required to be served.
Some court/tribunal matters have a single document to be served on the other party/s. For other matters, there may be numerous documents to serve as a service batch.
4. Attach a recent picture of the person to be served if available.
On occasion a party may seek to avoid service. Most Courts and Tribunals will accept an affidavit of service detailing the respondent/defendant was identified by the photograph, should the respondent/defendant claim they are not the person to be served. This is more common part of serving Family Law and Divorce as photos are often easily on hand. At the same time, social media has become a valuable resource for obtaining identification photographs.
5. Forward the email with the attachments.
If emailing the documents forward the documents to email address: admin@servenow.au.
If posting the documents forward the instructions and documents our centralised head office:
PO Box 160, Holland Park, Qld, 4121.
Remember, you must send the ‘Sealed’ documents. The Sealed documents will have the Court’s stamp or ‘Seal’ on each of the documents.
6. Receive acknowledgement email and Invoice.
Upon submitting your documents for service, we will review the instructions and document batch. If there are any apparent issues with the instructions or service batch, we will contact you to discuss and resolve the issues. If the instructions and service batch are complete, we will send you an acknowledgment email to advise the instructions have been received. We will then add the matter to active service with one of our agents in the area of service. We will at the same time send you an invoice for the service. The invoice can be paid via bank transfer or via secure online credit card payment. If you specified numerous service addresses in your instructions, we will only invoice for one service address initially, however a further invoice may need to be raised if we need to attend the additional addresses.
7. Await email updates.
As reports are received from our agents, we shall forward email updates to keep you informed as to what has occurred upon attending the address. We will send you a final email advising time and date of service, when the documents have been served. Some jobs may not be reported until the final attendance due to high volumes.
8. Affidavit of Service forwarding
Upon payment being received, we shall forward the sworn affidavit of service in the format required by the Court or Tribunal. This will be forwarded to the client’s email address in the first instance. If the Court jurisdiction requires hard copies of affidavits, we will also forward the hard copy to the client’s postal address listed in the instruction email/letter. Please note that production and forwarding of the affidavit of service may take up to a week after service is completed. If the served documents were international documents, we may ask the client to forward their preferred draft of the Affidavit of Service, Certificate of Service, Return of Service, Proof of Service or whichever may be applicable for your local jurisdiction.