Requirements for Service of Foreclosure Complaints

• Author: Rebecca A. Taylor
• Pages: 117-122

Requirements for Service of

Foreclosure Complaints

Chapter 15

117

The service of the foreclosure complaint is an issue that has gained

scrutiny nationwide as numerous instances in which proper service

was not conducted have been discovered by investigating authori-

ties. As reiterated elsewhere in this book, before a lender should

receive the drastic remedy of foreclosure, the lender must demon-

strate that it has complied with the Fifth Amendment to the United

States Constitution, which guarantees that no person shall be de-

prived of his property without due process of law. A homeowner

does not receive due process unless she receives notice of any and

all documents, hearings, and proceedings relevant to a foreclosure

action against her property.

It has long been held that if a defendant is “enticed into the juris-

diction of the court through fraud or trickery on the part of the plain-

tiff or someone acting in his behalf, in order that personal service of

process upon the defendant may be obtained, the service will be set

aside upon proper application therefor.”1 Private process servers were

placed under scrutiny at the height of the foreclosure crisis.2 In Chi-

cago, for example, a process server alleged that he served a home-

owner with a foreclosure complaint when at the time, public records

1. 98 A.L.R.2d 554 (1964), Attack on personal service as having been

obtained by fraud or trickery.

2. See Roger Bull, Florida Attorney General Investigating Companies

That Serve Foreclosure Papers, FLA. TIMES-UNION, Dec. 16, 2010.