SERVING OF SUMMONSES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3777, 10 April 1928, Page 2

SERVING OF SUMMONSES.

USB OF REGISTERED POST,

‘ OPPOSITION TO CHANGE. There is evident reluctance in -some quarters to the amended legislation permitting the service of a summons by registered post, and the subject was before Mr L. S. Paterson, S.M., at a sitting of the Putaruru Court. By an amendment, to the Magistrate’s Courts Act last session, it was provided that all summonses, except judgment summonses or summonses for 1 he recovery of possession of a tenement, might be served by registered letter, the object presumably being to save expense. According to the head of an Auckland debt collecting firm, there is a distinct reluctance on the part of bailiffs and constables, especially in country districts, to carry out the new order because of its displacement of the mileage fee for service. The mileage rate is one shilling a mile after the first, mile, and in the case of a debtor in a district remote from the nearest police station the mileage might amount to a considerable sum, which, in the default of the debtor, is a charge on the creditor. It often happens, also, that the debtor cannot be found, but the mileage has to be paid. • We have been serving summonses by registered post ever since the passing of the Act,” said the collector, “and the new system has proved of great convenience, besides saving expenditure. We have certainly encountered very little difficulty in service, and would ■strongly oppose any movement to hnveMhe amended section of the Act repealed.”