When is a registered letter deemed to have been delivered

wazzoraybelle

Does the law take a position on when a registered letter is deemed to have been delivered?

It is easy to imagine that many people are not at home when the post arrives and also that someone expecting a legal notice by registered mail might not collect the letter from the local post office when they get an attempted delivery notice in their postbox.

Have the courts taken a view on this?

Cheers

Little CuChulainn

It depends on the type of letter. For example, it would be different for contractual matters than it would be for criminal matters.

wazzoraybelle

While I'm speaking hypothetically, I was wondering about contractual matters, a notice of default, for example.

Pat Mustard

Suppose that proceedings for breach of contract have issued in the District Court and are served by registered post.

In such a case, one might look at Order 41 of the District Court Rules:

16 Deemed time of service
16. Where service of a document is effected by registered prepaid post or by ordinary prepaid post, the document must be deemed to be served on the person to whom it was directed at the time at which the envelope containing the copy of the document for service would be delivered in the ordinary course of post.

In such a case, service is deemed to occur at the time when delivery would occur in the ordinary course of post. By that standard, service would be deemed to take effect on the day after posting, generally.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Pat Mustard

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Also it is still deemed to be served even if it is returned undelivered/refused.

No. In that case, an application for sub service should be considered.