eSignature Lawfulness for Affidavit of Service in Canada

How to eSign a document: e-signature lawfulness for Affidavit of Service in Canada

what is up guys today we're back with another process serving tutorial today the topic is going to be return of services or affidavit of service or proof of service or whatever you want to call it it's all the same thing I've been getting a lot of comments about doing a video specifically on this so here it is we're gonna cover what needs to be in it who you need to send it to where to find a template and how to operate it inside a server manager but before we get started I do want to thank serv manager who's sponsoring not only this video but this entire series of videos serv manager comm is an online subscription service for process service inside serve manager you can put all your services in it even geo tags your location for any of your attempts or completed services it gives peace of mind your client so they know that you are out there attempting and completing their services serv manager also helps with the after service such as return of services which is what today's video is all about click on the link in the description below it will send you to serve manager coms website it is an affiliate link that is where you can sign up for your 14-day free trial I've had great luck with it thus far and will continue to use it ok let's talk about return services ok so what is a return of service or return a service is a receipt basically that's the simplest way to explain what it is so whenever you submit this paperwork to the court it is a receipt saying I served this person at this date and time and location you sign it it's an illegal document that says I did what this paperwork says I did so each service you complete must be accompanied with a return of service affidavit of service proof of service or several names for they're on the same thing what I'm gonna go over here today is what Utah requires another state may require more or less but I would say this is probably a good starting point because the information that my template contains I would say is pretty standard we'll go through mine explain what it all means and talk about the contents of it so here we are so inside my template I have taken in bold letters and just put return service right at the top right we want to know what it is an email list of paperwork is going to look right there in the middle and see it's a return of service directly below that I will add the court the address and the phone number of that court then you go over here to the left we have our plaintiff make sure you put the plaintiff their name in this in this circumstance it's equitable finance but if it's a private person that's having you serve a summons for them you'll just have their name their address but you got to make sure you did note that they are the plaintiff directly below that we'll have this individual with his address and below that we have defendant right there so it's pretty clear of who's the plaintiff who is the defendant over here a little bit more towards the middle we have a case number though now that case numbers gonna obviously be different for each service you complete however on the court date here let's say from equitable finance I end up with 15 services in a bundle I come home I get some of them served well the court date is going to remain the same on probably all of those but the court case number will not and that can get very confusing we'll talk about that here a little bit next line down to be received by Brett Bateman to be served on John Doe the received by is obviously going to be the person serving the paperwork so if it's you your name will go there if it's your employee or your 1099 contractor that's helping you out their name will go there that is the name of the person actually serving the paperwork then obviously right here is the name of the person who the paperwork is being served upon go down and on a few lines there he goes I Brett Bateman myself do you hereby affirm that on the first of October 2019 at 6:10 p.m. I personally served by delivering a true copy of the so obviously right here is going to be when you serve them date and time when you serve them I personally serve by delivering a true copy of the know right here is where you pop in what it was that you serve Ben's work there we go whatever your paperwork you served that's where it goes in now if you put though if you served a small claims affidavit summons but it was actually a bench warrant and you put the wrong thing in there the courts will reject that it's got to be very specific and it's got to be accurate with the date an hour of service endorsed thereon by me - now what I've got as an example right here this is a very important part of this return service let's say John Doe I served his wife Jane because John wasn't home he doesn't work we'll say so if that is legal in Utah you can serve somebody who resides with that person doesn't necessarily have to be a family member it has to be somebody who lives with them so it can be a roommate as long as they live with them so in this case let's say I serve Jane the wife she doesn't she doesn't live there so I've placed - Jane John's wife who resides right there resides that is a key word if if you don't put that I've had courts kick back my return services because they want that verbage in it who resides with him an important bit of herbage at their address in Ogden Utah and informed the said person of the contents there in which means that's the part when you said hey my name is bread I'm a process server and the court summons for John he's gonna want to read through it Courtney's in the back that's what that means is that you told that person what you have for them and what's what it contains it's a court summons you go down a few more lines and you have this little bit here what that is is that you declare by signing this return of service means what you say in it is true and correct under penalty of law that if so basically if you're lying and you sign this you understand that you could be held criminally responsible for that so you certainly don't want to lie in court documents right I mean that's pretty common sense I would say if you don't serve it don't put it on there if it didn't happen don't make a return of service moving on I have a line here with my name on it and a signature spot so you will sign this form and make sure it gets emailed or the live hand-delivered to the court and your client once you complete this version then once again this is just like a word document in my case a text edit document on my Mac you hit file and you're going to want to export it as a PDF you can see up there I've got let our OS late inequitable swine what it is so now it just converted it to a PDF from a Word file I bring it up there it is in a PDF and you want the PDF because you don't want anybody to be able to alter the information you put on this return service because it's a legal document you sign you sign it as it is now you didn't you don't want me to alter that so I'll come over here to tools annotate signature I'm the one who served it so I find my signature I'll take it I'll drag it down here I'll make it look nice make it look like it fits there it is I exit out of it and then I take that file and I email it to my client and I email it to the court so they had now have a signed digital copy in their email and I have a record of when I sent it because it's gonna be in my outbox in my email but that's how I did it in the olden days I've since switched obviously with serve manager com since I've been using them they've got a quite a bit simpler method that completely eliminates mistakes and it's a lot faster especially on a day when you get back from serving ten or fifteen services you could sit here for hours and hours just deleting info on your form and putting in the new info could rotate into a PDS sending it off going back to this form deleting all that putting the new person's info in it takes hours I mean it it eats up a lot of your day so with serve manager when you input your service originally into the program it stores all that information so when you come back to it in this case and want to do a return a service it will take that information that you originally inputted and it will autofill a return a service obviously that's instant it's quick and fast a lot easier than deleting and redoing a bunch of information it will autofill that one so here here's one right here I have obviously got the name and the address blurred out this is an actual one I've done so you'll click right here on new affidavit and it will bring you to this one as you can see this looks just like the one I came up with and they were able to get my template in here there is a small fee for that but it's worth it because now it's my layout my temp but when I look through it and make sure everything's there I know what I'm looking for so here we have mine it's got all the information that I needed Auto filled into it case number court date and time names where they were served all I've got to do is add my service fee and sign it and save it it's a digital signature signs aid and then you and then you share it with the courts and it will go to the client as well it the nicest part about this is the accuracy and the speed so with my other method too many times I would send one ah did you just get in a rhythm of doing them and you'd miss something out send them all off to the court or the next day I to get an email from the court saying hey you sent me return of service it has the wrong case number on it or it's got two different people's names on it or it's got the wrong address on it and it was cuz I was in a rhythm and I had accidentally missed a few lines important lines and in one or two of them then you have to redo the entire one that you messed up on is it's a pain and it's just inaccurate and it's awfully unprofessional to be sending the court inaccurate information so with the certain doing it right here in serve manager it just streamlines that to the point where there's no mistakes and it's quick autofill instant you send it off and it's just made a big difference in my workflow so I do recommend doing it this way guys I hope that was informative for you I hope you got out of it what you hope to get out of it if there's any any bit of that return of service that is not clear drop me a comment I'm happy to respond to him guys that's it for me I appreciate you check out the video and happy hunting on your services go get them [Music]