Odd Real Estate / Lawyer / Business Question

[Ducay]

So sitting enjoying a nice glass of vino and some dinner and there is a ring at the door.

Me : "Good Evening"

Person : "Oh, here are some documents for you"

Me : "........ok........what are they"

Person : "You're being served"

Me: "Me?"

Person : "You are Mr. XXXX right?"

Me: "No, Im Mr. ZZZZ"

Person : "Oh, well this is still the registered address for Mr. XXXX's business"

Me : "uhhhhhhh k?"

Person : "I may leave these documents here, do what you want with them"

Me : "Thanks?"


Basically it was an overall confusing conversation. The previous owner of our house (we've been in here over a year), hasn't bothered to move the address of the business (we receieve mail for this company every couple months). Canada Post instructed us to mark any mail "address unknown" and toss it back in the mailbox.

Anyways, so my questions is there anything else I should do? (ie contacting Alberta Registries?) Not that I have anything else against a good conversation with a process server, but I just want to get this sorted with and not have this shady business tied to my home, especially if dude's getting sued.

[4X4]

Every time I move, I take the time to mark all previous owners' mail "RTS MOVED", and throw it back in the mailbox. It actually works. The only persistant mailors are the solicitation types. They'll still send their free offers and whatnot, but banks and most other legitimate mailors will stop sending stuff immediately, and make an effort to contact the intended recipient for a new mailing address.

It actually surprises me how careless some people are with their old mail. Bank statements, Alberta Registries, tickets from CPS, credit card statements... You name it. I think it's crazy to let that stuff get sent to an old address. My first order of business when moving is to contact EVERYONE and change my mailing address.

[Robbob]

I would think if you are being served you have to actually give it to the person or a person you know will give them the documents (ie wife). I would think the address means nothing. I know there are rule are rules for serving but I don't know them offhand. I remember few months after I moved into my house some guy came by to serve the previous owner with some papers and I told them they no longer live here and he left.

Leaving the documents at a residents just because the address is on the papers I would think mean absolutely nothing. I think some one is jsut being lazy because they don't know where to do next.

I probably would have told the guy to keep the papers because I don't want to get involved.

[gottabekd]

In movies they usually confirm your identity first. Seems strange that this guy asked for your name after giving you the papers.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by gottabekd

In movies they usually confirm your identity first. Seems strange that this guy asked for your name after giving you the papers.

They didn't end up giving us the papers once he found out who I actually was, he did, however, say that he may end up leaving the papers (which was quite odd), perhaps he meant another time?

Anyways, it was just an odd situation. So should I even bother calling Alberta Regisitries? I just don't want this mope somehow getting a lien on my lean-to.

[V]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Every time I move, I take the time to mark all previous owners' mail "RTS MOVED", and throw it back in the mailbox. It actually works. The only persistant mailors are the solicitation types. They'll still send their free offers and whatnot, but banks and most other legitimate mailors will stop sending stuff immediately, and make an effort to contact the intended recipient for a new mailing address.

It actually surprises me how careless some people are with their old mail. Bank statements, Alberta Registries, tickets from CPS, credit card statements... You name it. I think it's crazy to let that stuff get sent to an old address. My first order of business when moving is to contact EVERYONE and change my mailing address.

Mail Forwarding is the shiznit. Everything gets forwarded to your new address for 6 months which gives you tonnes of time to change the information. It's also easy to find out what you haven't changed because the forwarded mail has a big label on it. Very effective.

[onetwo_threefour]

It is valid to leave the papers at the registered office of a company as that is the 'official' address as far as the Courts are concerned. As the homeowner, you don't have to worry once you have told the process server you are not Mr. XXXX but you could make a call to the lawyer who created the paperwork that was left at your house to let them know. As long as your purchase of the home was an arm's length transaction for fair value with the previous owner, you should have no risk of anybody successfully filing a judgment against title.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by onetwo_threefour

It is valid to leave the papers at the registered office of a company as that is the 'official' address as far as the Courts are concerned. As the homeowner, you don't have to worry once you have told the process server you are not Mr. XXXX but you could make a call to the lawyer who created the paperwork that was left at your house to let them know. As long as your purchase of the home was an arm's length transaction for fair value with the previous owner, you should have no risk of anybody successfully filing a judgment against title.

This.

A little effort to let the lawyer know that they have the wrong address will save you a lot of headache down the road.

I did a very little bit of process serving work when my Dad died, to clear up his remaining stuff with the lawyers office he was working for.

As I was told for the documents I served, as a process server you don't care who the person is you are handing them to because you are paid to take the documents to the location specified and serve them in the manner specified. It just needed to be a person over a certain age, (14 or 16 maybe?). Sometimes it needs to be a specific person, so you need to ask for them by name, but I don't remember if I did any of those.


If the guy who answers the door says he isn't Mr. XXXX then how do you know if he is lying or not? People try all sorts of tricks to duck service. I know my dad used some pretty nasty tricks some times to get people to answer the door. One time he even got a buddy who was in EMS to sit his ambulance outside the house of a particularly resistant fellow. He turned on the sirens for 30 seconds and then went to the door and pounded on it pretty hard. The guy opened right up, agreed he was the person on the service and got served. He was pretty choked on how he was tricked, but I don't know how against the rules it was.

One funny thing that almost always happened if the person was expecting service is they would never accept the documents. I was told that unless it was a certain type of service (that I never did) you simply had to reach out and touch them with the papers and then drop them. Often you would have people just laughing at you from their front window, so you are able to show them the documents and point out a few things and put them in their mailbox. I never did one of these either.