Essential Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Process Server
Your case is filed and you’ve received your summons…now it’s time to hire a process server. Before you pay out any cash, you need to make sure that the person you’re hiring is legit. Ask the following questions to vet potential process servers and choose the best one for your case:
What are your credentials?
If you need service in Broward or Monroe County, ask the server for documentation of their approval by the Sheriff in that county. In Miami-Dade County, servers should be certified by Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit. Any server that cannot show documentation of their approval as a private process server should not be hired.
How much experience do you have as a process server?
Experienced process servers will be able to offer you references and possibly even recommendations from long-term clients. However, just because a server is new to the job doesn’t mean they aren’t credible. If the server you are considering is new to process serving and doesn’t have professional references, ask for personal references and evidence of recent completion of a process service examination or training.
What about proof of service?
Always ask how and when proof of service will be provided, and if the server files this proof with the court as well. If service by substitution or publication is likely in your case, ask about their procedures for proof of service in those cases as well.
How will I get updates?
Everyone has different preferences for how they like to receive updates. Some people prefer daily updates, while others just want to know when the job is done. Always ask a process server candidate how they intend to communicate with you about your case’s status and how often you should expect to be updated.
If you use a server at Accurate Serve® in Plantation, Miami, or Key West, you’ll always have access to your case’s status using our 24/7 online status tracker, available right on our website home page.
How much do you charge?
There’s never an easy answer to this, as there is no way to know how difficult it will be to locate a defendant or witness for your case. For easy-to-locate defendants and witnesses, you can expect to be charged just a base fee. On the other hand, for difficult-to-locate targets, those fees will climb as the amount of work to find them increases. Be prepared by providing the process server with addresses, phone numbers, and other information that will help them locate the intended process recipient, and your process serving fees will be significantly lower.
Quality Process Servers in Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe Counties
For the best process servers in southern Florida, trust the professionals at Accurate Serve®. Our servers are experienced, discreet, and ready to help you with all your process service, document retrieval, skip trace, and diligent search needs. Call us at (954) 299-1552 or send us a work request online to get started.