The Coronavirus-related lockdown has presented the country’s debtor tracing industry with unique challenges. While Sheriffs of the Court were empowered to serve legal notices since level 3 of the national lockdown, many errant debtors self-isolated at family addresses that were not their usual residences.
That’s according to Mia Stewart, Managing Director of specialised outsource tracing firm, Tracee. “Family members shielding relatives from officers of the Court attempting to issue summons is one of the top reason for the Sheriff being unable to successfully serve summons,” she says.
Despite the unique debt tracing challenges of 2020, Ms Stewart says her company has managed to keep its retrace percentage at the 1% mark using state-of-the-art, web-based tracing technology, reliable databases and good old-fashioned sleuthing skills.
In the tracing industry, a retrace is typically when a client such as a law firm has requested the Sheriff to issue summons, providing an address where the defendant could not be found. An outsource tracing partner like Tracee would then step in to do a trace using specialised tracing resources that are typically much more effective at locating an address which will render successful service by the Sheriff.
When Tracee is involved at the initial tracing stage, the requirement for a second trace due to the inability to locate the defendant is limited to a single percent. Tracee’s reports provide additional information to assist the Sheriff with obtaining a successful service, for example, a suggested “best time to serve”.
One the other reasons for Sheriffs being unable to issue summons, Ms Stewart says, is the inability to gain entry to the premises. Here, dogs on the property often prevent legal notices being served. In addition, very often no-one is home at the address provided, or is pretending to not be present. Sometimes, she says, the street name or number provided to the Sheriff by the attorney does not exist. “It makes tremendous sense to partner with a specialised tracing firm that has the resources to properly tick all the boxes like verifying addresses while also being able to take tracing to the next level in the event of particularly-slippery defendants,” says Ms Stewart.
“For the Sheriff to be successful in serving summons 99% of the time, the tracing partner has to properly interrogate the data received from the attorney. Our specialists are experts at data interrogation. It’s time to reduce wasted Sheriff’s costs,” concludes Ms Stewart.
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