I. S.

Legal Process

I was instructed to serve urgent legal papers on behalf of a client. A simple enough job which I have done many times before. This one was a little more complicated than most, as the person who I was instructed to serve the papers to was not at the address supplied - and indeed proved to be highly elusive.I knocked at the door of the address provided to me by my client and stated clearly by the court on the legal papers. When the door was answered I asked, in a friendly fashion (as I always do), for xxxx. I was informed that the address was a student accommodation and that nobody of that name lived there. I questioned all of the students living there and nobody seemed to know xxxx, even a student who had lived at that address for more than a year did not have any knowledge of xxxx, nor any forwarding address. I noticed a large pile of unopened post addressed to xxxx by the door waiting for collection. I knocked on the door of neighbours - nobody had heard of xxxx.Next I found out the name of the lardlord of the property and interviewed them. The landlord confirmed that xxxx had moved out some 15 months previously and had not left a forwarding address or telephone number. This was not looking good. The landlord did inform me of the course which xxxx had taken at the university.I spoke with the registrar at the university to uncover a forwarding address. The registrar informed me that they could provide such information, but only after authorisation from xxxx.Specialist databases proved fruitless and revealed that xxxx was not registered on the electoral register and all of the other databases came back with the previous address. I also managed to get hold of xxxx's email

address and did a reverse-email check to determine the address which the account was registered to - which was the address I already had!Xxxx's facebook account (which hadn't been used for several months) and twitter account (which was up-to-date). both had photographs of xxxx and the twitter account revealed that xxxx was still resident locally. A break at last!I made an appointment to see the boss at the offices of the Local Borough Council. After some to-ing & fro-ing the councillor revealed that they did not have an address different from the previous one (which xxxx had vacated 15 months previously).I did manage to eventually locate the new address for xxxx using other means. Xxxx was very suprised when I knocked on the door. I recognised xxxx immediately from the twitter and facebook photographs. I double-checked to make sure it was xxxx I was speaking to, introduced myself, then presented the legal papers (unopened) into xxxx's hand. I explained what the papers were and pointed out the court date, emphasising how serious it would be if xxxx did not turn up to the court at the date and time specified. I enquired how xxxx was going to get to the court and offered some money to make sure xxxx turned up (not a bribe - it's known as 'conduct money'). I thanked the bemused xxxx and left whilst xxxx was still reading through the paperwork.