I recently met with a client who was shocked to discover a debt buyer had obtained a final judgment against her without her knowledge. I reviewed the court docket with her and learned that the client was allegedly served with a copy of the complaint at a “Private Mailbox.” These include places like the UPS Store, Pak-N-Ship locations, etc.
Service of process occurs when the defendant in an action is delivered a copy of the petition, complaint or other initial paper or initial pleading. Fla. Stat. Ann. § 48.031 (West). Florida Statutes Chapter 48 lists various additional mechanisms available to a Plaintiff to who is trying to serve you. However, service at a private mailbox/ UPS Store is only valid under extremely limited circumstances as listed in the statute below:
Florida Statute §48.031(6)(a) provides that:
(6)(a) If the only address for a person to be served which is discoverable through public records is a private mailbox, a virtual office, or an executive office or mini suite, substituted service may be made by leaving a copy of the process with the person in charge of the private mailbox, virtual office, or executive office or mini suite, but only if the process server determines that the person to be served maintains a mailbox, a virtual office, or an executive office or mini suite at that location. (emphasis added).
The statute only allows for service at a private mailbox if the private mailbox address is the only address discoverable through the public records. The client had been residing at her home for over a year and her voter’s registration, available via a simple internet search, listed her home address.
Loan Lawyers immediately got to work on the client’s case and filed a motion to quash service and a Motion to Vacate the Default Final Judgment that had been entered against her. We attached supporting documents to the Motion to Quash showing that our access to our client’s home address is readily available in the public record.
When met with the convincing evidence that we submitted to the Court, the debt buyer’s attorney agreed that the service was invalid and also agreed to vacate the default final judgment. The client was grateful that Loan Lawyers were able to get the judgment vacated as the judgment amount was over $10,000.
Many consumers are encountered with a judgment of which they were previously unaware and decide to go ahead and pay the debt buyer just to make them go away. If you discover the existence of a judgment that you didn’t know about or were never served with court papers, contacting Loan Lawyers to evaluate your case is the best course of action. There are many avenues that can be explored in potentially getting the judgment vacated.
Loan Lawyers has an outstanding track record of getting judgments vacated and helping our clients fight against debt buyers to reach a favorable outcome. We have even assisted a few clients in getting old judgments vacated and fighting debt buyers until they decide to drop their case without our clients paying anything.
Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 1,800 homes from foreclosure, eliminated $100,000,000 in mortgage principal and consumer debt, and have collected millions of dollars on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations, negligence and fraud. Contact us for a free consultation to see how we may be able to help you.