How to serve court papers Tulare County of California

How to serve court papers Tulare County of California

*Note this article is a product of collective research and experience. The author is not authorized to give legal advice and nothing here should be construed as legal advice.

How to go about serving court summons and paperwork in the Tulare County of California:

It is mandatory that you formally notify the other party of the lawsuit that they are being sued, and/or being summoned to a court hearing. Here are the California requirements for serving the summons:

• The papers MUST be served to your defendant in person. You cannot just mail it to their house or office, even if you are unable to get a hold of them.
• The person serving the papers MUST be 18 years of age or older.
• The person serving the papers cannot be a party of the legal action. (You or anybody else who’s name is on the lawsuit cannot personally serve the papers.)
• The paperwork has to be served within the court’s time requirement. (Usually has to be served by about 10 – 15 days before the court hearing. The sooner, the better.)
• Once the other party is served a Proof of Service needs to be correctly filled out by the person who performed the serving of process and filed with the court by the deadline.

Question: Could I have a family member or friend (unrelated to the lawsuit) serve the papers? Yes, you absolutely could! That is perfectly fair and legal, as long as they meet all the requirements above. However, there are a few other things you should keep in mind when asking this duty of somebody close to you, who is not a professional Process Server:

• Make sure they know what they are doing! If the papers are given to the wrong person or somebody who could not be considered a “substitute”, then the service is not valid. If your defendant is not properly served they do not have to show up to the hearing and this could delay or damage your entire lawsuit.
• Make sure they are not taking any extreme or illegal measures to get the paperwork served. This could come back and bite you. Your server could be arrested and you could lose your case, or worse, you may end up being the one getting sued.
• Is the person being served very dangerous? It’s likely that the lawsuit will create bad blood between the two parties. It can bring a lot of rage out of someone to know that they are being sued. Does the party being served know the family member or friend that you’ve asked to serve the paperwork? Will they try to get physical with your server once confronted face to face? Most of the time this is the very reason people prefer to hire a licensed Process Server.
• Has the person you’ve asked to serve the other party done this before? If a person serves more than 10 summons within a years time, they are required by law to be registered or licensed as a Process Server with their county. If the person you’ve asked to serve your paperwork is the “go-to” friend who has done this multiple times, make sure they haven’t already exceeded their limit.

Why Should I Hire a Process Server:

• Less work on your part
• In some situations it is safer and can help you avoid more altercations with your defendant
• Less Liability
• If the defendant is able to be served, you know it was done right.
• Less paperwork for you to fill out

Drawbacks of Hiring a Process Server: The #1 reason people hesitate to hire a Process Server is because they don’t want to spend anymore money. That’s understandable, working through a lawsuit can become expensive. Specially if the defendant wasn’t successfully served the first time around. But we can help you with that:

Most local Process Servers in Tulare County of California charge $45 – $55 per defendant. And some companies rates are even higher! The Tulare County Sheriff’s Department charges $40 per defendant. It’s a decent price, but they are not known to try very hard to ensure that the service was successful. I personally have used them for serving a court summons and they were not only unsuccessful, but they didn’t even list how many attempts they made or why they were unsuccessful at serving the defendant. Which means you have to keep paying more and more until the defendant is finally served, or else you’ve paid money for a court hearing that nobody legally has to show up to.

West State Judgment Recovery offers Process Serving at only $35 per defendant. To our knowledge, we are the cheapest service in the county. We’ll serve anywhere in Tulare County, including Visalia, Tulare, Exeter, Farmersville, Lindsay and Porterville. We guarantee we will make at least three attempts to serve the defendant. We provide you with a Proof of Service for successful services and an Affidavit of Due Diligence if we absolutely could not serve your defendant by the deadline. We work directly with you to get all the information needed to locate and identify your defendant and will try everything in our power to ensure they are served in a timely manner.

Contact West State Judgment Recovery for Process Serving at:

559-909-8400 and visit our official website online at www.weststatejudgmentrecovery.com

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Information regarding Process Serving laws for California was found here:
http://www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-serving.htm