When you commence court proceedings, you will usually need to serve the summons on your debtor personally. It’s easier for a company – most of the time you can just post it to the registered office. But for individuals, you need to know where they live or work to hand them the document. The more information you can give us, the better chance you have of serving the summons.
There are plenty of ways of finding your debtor. It can sometimes be as simple as asking for an address!
You can also try:
Landgate – if your debtor owns land in Western Australia, you can search Landgate’s records for the address of the property.
Electoral Roll Search – the Australian Electoral Commission and the Western Australian Electoral Commission keep the names and addresses of everyone who is enrolled to vote at Federal and State elections respectively. You must attend a WAEC or AEC office to search their records.
Internet searches – finding your debtor on Facebook might lead you right to them! You can also try searching their name, email address, and telephone number on websites such as Google and LinkedIn.
White pages – search your debtor’s name – you might find both their address and telephone number!
ASIC search – you can search ASIC’s records to see if they are a company officeholder or shareholder (for private companies only). ASIC will usually only have an address for officeholders.
Need help?
We recommend you see us for a 30 minute consultation ($198) where we can review the situation and advise you on alternatives (for example, substituted service). You can book a consultation online here.
