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#the application materials when an application is being made for a finding that someone is in contempt of court.
Personal service is required when starting a court proceeding. Once the other side files his or her their Response to Family Claim, almost all legal documents after that can simply be delivered to each side by ''ordinary service'', at their respective addresses for service.
The easiest way to ensure personal service is properly done is to hire a process server, but you can arrange for someone else to do it for you.
Since the court <span class="noglossary">will</span> require proof that the respondent was properly served, the person who did the service should prepare an Affidavit of Personal Service in Form F15. For this reason, the person doing the service usually must:
*be provided with a photograph of the respondent, so that he or she they can confirm that the person served looked like the person in the photograph,*ask the respondent to confirm that he or she is they are the person named in the Notice of Family Claim, or*ask the respondent to produce his or her their driver's licence (or other official government photo identification) and confirm that the name on the licence matches the name in the Notice of Family Claim and that the person served looks like the photograph on the licence.
The claimant in a family law proceeding cannot serve the respondent personally. You must get someone else to do it for you! That person can be anyone who is age 19 or older and sane.
==Substituted service==
Of course, not everyone is willing to be nice about things and cooperate with service. When the respondent is avoiding service, you can get an order that he or she they be served in some other way than the usual, proper way. This is called ''substituted service''.
You <span class="noglossary">will</span> have to prove that you can't serve the respondent in the normal manner before you <span class="noglossary">will</span> be allowed to serve them substitutionally, so you'll have to provide the court with an affidavit from your process server describing how the respondent is avoiding service, or your own affidavit stating that you don't know where the respondent is and that he or she they can't be found.
The court has a fairly wide latitude when it comes to making orders for substituted service. The court can order that the respondent be served by:
*posting a copy of the documents to the door of his or her their home or office,
*running ads in the legal notices section of a newspaper distributed where the respondent lives,
*leaving a copy of the Notice of Family Claim with an adult living where the respondent is thought to live,
==Contempt applications==
You must personally serve a party when you are making an application that he or she they be found in contempt of court. Rule 21-7 requires that the other side be personally served with the Notice of Application asking that the party be found in contempt of court plus copies of the affidavits that <span class="noglossary">will</span> be used in support of your application.
==More information==