Do you have a civil court case that is dead in the water because you can’t find the defendant? This is a common problem, especially when using the sheriff’s department for service of process. Often, people have simply moved or changed employment, but sometimes people intentionally disappear so that they can’t be sued or prosecuted.
Private process servers have a lot of resources available to find missing persons who need to be served. The sheriff’s department does not have the resources to find people for this purpose. Often, if a sheriff cannot serve the papers at the individual’s last known residence, they return the papers to the court as undeliverable. A process server can spend much more time and try more locations to get the papers served in a timely manner.
Some of the tools that private process servers use to find missing persons include:
- Public records such as marriage licenses, property deeds, or arrest records
- Public court records that may include an address
- Social media for information such as picture, city, and employer
- Skip tracing with online tools or software
In addition to these tools, most process servers have a private investigator on retainer. These investigators have even more methods and tools to find people that don’t want to be found. Private investigators can take the information gathered by the process server and use it to track down the individual. This is usually done because it would be too time consuming for the process server to drive around the city aimlessly looking for someone to be served.
If you are ready to have some legal papers served, contact us today for more information or to get started.
