In the world of legal proceedings, process service plays a crucial role in ensuring due process and the effective administration of justice. One key aspect of process service is skip tracing, a technique used to locate individuals who are difficult to find or have intentionally evaded service. Accurate Serve® of Ocala, a trusted process service agency serving Ocala, Clermont, Inverness, Spring Hill, The Villages, and surrounding areas in Florida, is here to shed light on what skip tracing is and how it can benefit your legal case. Continue reading →

If you’re considering filing a civil lawsuit in Ocala, Florida, there are several types of paperwork you must complete to initiate legal proceedings. Here are the key documents you’ll need to prepare:

Complaint

The complaint is the document that initiates a civil lawsuit. It outlines the basis for the lawsuit and the claims the plaintiff is making against the defendant. The complaint must be filed with the court and served on the defendant, along with a summons, which informs the defendant of the lawsuit and their right to respond. Continue reading →

If you are a process server or a law firm, you may already know that providing proper proof of service is essential when serving legal documents in Florida. Proper proof of service can protect you and your clients from unnecessary legal complications and ensure that the legal process proceeds smoothly. Here’s a quick guide on how to provide proper proof of service for process served in Florida.

Step 1: Understand the Rules

First and foremost, you need to understand the rules regarding proof of service in Florida. In Florida, the rules for serving process are governed by Chapter 48 of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP). The FRCP gives each county or judicial circuit in the state leeway to create their own proof of service forms. Here in Ocala, which is part of Florida’s 5th Judicial Circuit, the template designed by the judicial circuit to use for proof of service can be found here and must be notarized to be valid. Continue reading →

At Accurate Serve in Ocala, Florida, we have been providing legal document services for many years, including service of process and document retrievals. During our experience, we have found that there are several common questions that clients or others ask about process serving. In this post, we will address some of these questions and provide answers that will help you better understand the process of serving legal documents.

What is Process Serving?

Process serving is the delivery of legal documents to an individual or entity that is a party to a legal action. These documents can include summons, subpoenas, complaints, and other legal documents. Continue reading →

You may know that process servers usually deliver legal papers to people involved in court cases, but you probably don’t know all the different types of legal papers a process server might come across in their career. From civil summonses to criminal witness subpoenas to eviction notices, process servers deal in many different areas of the law. Sometimes they even deliver paperwork that isn’t court related but still requires a documented chain of custody.

Some of the most common types of documents that a process server delivers include:

Writs, Including Summonses

Writs are extremely common legal documents. One of the most well-known types of writ is a summons. A summons is issued whenever a court case is filed, directing those named in the case to appear in court at a certain date and time. However, there are many other types of writs, including: Continue reading →

If a process server is looking for you, you may think that avoiding them is a way to get out of having to appear in court. Think again! Avoiding a process server will accomplish nothing other than getting you into more trouble with the court system.

Some of the serious consequences you may deal with if you evade service include:

Higher Costs

Most process servers will attempt to serve your process 4-6 times for their base fee. Once those attempts are used up, there are extra charges for each additional attempt that is made. If the defendant cannot be located, alternative service must be requested, which also carries a fee. While the plaintiff is typically the one to pay these process service fees, if a judge feels that the defendant is intentionally avoiding service, they can order the defendant to pay the extra costs. That means process server fees, court costs, attorney fees, and more could be added to the judgment for the plaintiff, adding up to thousands of extra dollars! Continue reading →

If you’ve filed a civil case in Marion County, you were probably told that your next step is to serve the defendants and witnesses named in your case. But what does it mean to serve process on someone? In this post, we’ll go over the basics of the service of process in Ocala and surrounding areas.

What is Service of Process?

Service of process is a legal concept in which individuals and businesses who are named as defendants or witnesses in court cases are notified of their scheduled court dates or other legal notifications. This allows them sufficient time to prepare for their court appearance. Continue reading →

Process servers deliver court paperwork to their intended recipient(s), such as defendants and witnesses, being notified of their mandatory appearance in court. After a process server has “served” the recipient, they file proof of this service with the court associated with the case. Until a defendant is considered “served”, the case against them cannot proceed, so it is very important for litigants to be served promptly upon the filing of the case. But what exactly are process servers allowed to do to find and serve process recipients?

What Process Servers Can Do

Contact Family and Friends

A process server may make some calls to friends or family members of the process recipient they are searching for. During these calls, the server can disclose who they are and the reason they are looking for the process recipient. Continue reading →

Your case is filed, and the date is set…now it’s time to get those summons and subpoenas out there. The best way to handle your case process is to use a reputable, experienced process server.

So what should you be looking out for when hiring a process server? Use our quick guide below to hit all the high notes and narrow your process server candidate list down (Pro tip: Skip the work and go straight for the best process servers in Ocala and surrounding areas – Accurate Serve®). Continue reading →

Are you a process server having a hard time finding your process recipient? Avoiding a process server is not uncommon. People do so for various reasons, including just not wanting to hear bad news. However, no matter how badly they want to avoid the court case the process server is trying to contact them about, they can’t. Avoiding the process server just adds extra time and expense to the case that they may end up responsible for if a judge finds that they intentionally avoided the server to delay the proceedings.

Here at Accurate Serve® of Ocala, we’re experts at finding people who don’t want to be found. Along with our fast and efficient process server services, we also offer skip traces and diligent searches to hunt down the most elusive of litigants. Here are our top tips for finding an evasive process recipient: Continue reading →