When you think of a private investigator, you tend to think of the ‘classic’ roles that one can fulfil – tracing missing people, carrying out surveillance, or assisting with criminal defence investigations.
So say you’re a business owner in Bolton – you might wonder why you could ever need the services of a PI. However, there are actually a multitude of reasons, including tracing debtors, corporate surveillance, investigating fraudulent injury claims and more.
Let’s focus on that first one a little more – tracing debtors. If you’re owed money then you need to be able to find the person/business and communicate with them to ask for your payment. But what happens if they still refuse to pay even then? That’s when you need process servers in Bolton to help you serve a statutory demand.
What is a Statutory Demand?
A statutory demand is a formal warning sent by a creditor to a person or business that owes them money. This document will state that if the debtor doesn’t settle the debt or come up with an alternative arrangement with the creditor, then they will start court proceedings which could ultimately result in bankruptcy, if the debtor cannot afford to pay.
These documents give the debtor a very specific 21 days in which to resolve the issue. Which is why it’s extremely important that statutory demand letters are properly delivered and in a reasonable time. If you’ve gone to the effort of filing a statutory demand and you can’t prove when it was received, or if it was received at all, then you won’t be able to take the debtor to court in a bid to reclaim your money.
How does process serving a statutory demand work?
If you want to serve a statutory demand, you can either:
- Give it to the individual themselves that owes you money
- Leave it at the registered office of the company that owes you money (or, if they don’t have a registered office, their main place of business)
- Give it to the company’s director, company secretary, principal officer or manager
- Ask a process server to do one of the above for you
Most of the time, you’ll instruct a process server via your solicitor, although you can speak to one directly. A private investigator that offers process serving as a service (like we do at EJM Investigations) gives you the best chance of success, since we’re not only experts in the steps that need to be followed for documents to be served, but we’re also highly skilled in finding people too.
It’s important that you keep records of the statutory demand, which includes confirmation of postage times or records from your process server, and confirmation that it was received. A process server can provide both by serving the document in person, taking a statement confirming receipt, and providing all necessary legal records.
If you’re looking for process serving in Bolton to help deliver a statutory demand, either as a creditor or a solicitor acting on behalf of one, then give the EJM Investigations team a call on 01772 334700.