Personally serving court papers

[Suns1nE]

Hoping somebody can help. I need to “personally serve” a summons to my estranged father for him to provide an inventory of accounts for his late grandmothers estate. Can I do this myself? If so what do I need to do to prove that I have served him?

I know the ideal approach is to use a process server but as he is quite hard to track down due to the nature of his job, and the fact he’s moved house and I have no known address for him now, it’s going to be very costly to use this service and I am on a very limited income.

I would really appreciate any help with this as I’ve tried Google but the information is unclear.

Thanks in advance for you any help you can offer

There are two separate issues here, IMO.

1. Locating him.
2. The correct legal process.

Which country are you in?

I’m in England

Most process servers will operate on a fixed fee and provide a certificate of service. Anyone, in theory can serve the papers and complete the certificate. I have done this myself as part of my job. Depending on where in the country he is, I may be able to recommend a couple of companies. Feel free to PM if you like.

Documents can be considered served by post, but that would depend on what the wording on the paperwork is.

The certificate of service can be found here

This is really helpful information thankyou. I have a process server employed at present but he attended the last known address (he lived there 2 months ago) but he no longer lives there and the residents said they don’t know him.
I believe I have located his work place but the job is mobile security so hours are adhoc so the chance of actually catching him there is slim. I have given him the address and he will make his 3 attempts at that address but I need a backup plan.

I know where his mum lives, his MIL lives and his best friend so potentially if I can serve the papers myself I have more chance of catching him if I dedicate a few days to loitering around these addresses as I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay the process server to visit all of those addresses.

That does sound tricky! Best of luck, and let me know how it goes. Happy to offer more advice if you need it.