We cover the whole of the England and Wales.

Scotland, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man have different legal systems and we recommend you choose someone local for service there. If that proves difficult, however, do get in touch, we shall be able to help.

Here in the UK, we don't serve the volumes of papers you serve in the US and it is rare to find process serving firms who do nothing else but serve papers. It is much harder, therefore, to offer fixed prices to cover all situations. Having said that, we have a fixed fee structure for non-rush serves in London and most other parts of the country. Whatever your needs, therefore, please write to us at info@atpps.com for a quote.

As you can imagine, our rules on service may differ widely from yours.  Since we know that your rules can differ significantly from State to State, please do not rely on us to know your rules. Please be thorough in explaining just what we should and should not do for you in effecting service.

Your instructions should cover ALL the following issues:

• Personal or substituted
• Rules for corporate service
• Rules and conditions for substituted service
• Mailing an extra set
• Asking about being in the US military
• Asking about marital status
• Description of recipient
• Time limits
• Sunday service
• Serving original or copy if both are sent.

We have become familiar with most of the layouts in use in different states and have many of them set up on computer. However, for the removal of any doubt, we much prefer you to send us a draft of the layout you want us to use.

Our courts (and our Central Authority) will generally accept an unsworn witness statement to prove service. It is similar to a declaration under penalty of perjury in the US.  There is no extra charge for providing this form of proof of service.

If you need your proof of service to be sworn, you have three choices:

1.    Our equivalent of your notarisation is having an affidavit of service sworn in front of a commissioner for oaths (usually a solicitor – an attorney), who normally uses the title "Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales" under his signature. The solicitor will usually, but not always, use an ink stamp, but never a seal. Our fee for an affidavit of service sworn this way is $35, with an extra $10 for every extra affidavit sworn at the same time. This fee includes the time and cost of an attendance at a law firm's office.

2.    We do have Notaries Public, but they are few and far between.  They are very different to those in the US, being lawyers who have taken an extra qualification.  Thus Notary Public fees will reflect their status and generally be based on their usual hourly rate. This means that a fee for a notarised affidavit will typically be anything from $50 to $150 (or possibly more - one often does not know the fee in advance). Further problems are that we cannot just go in off the street to see a Notary Public, and they will not be just around the corner. An appointment has to be made, and it might involve a couple of hours to cover travel and waiting as well. Thus the fee for an affidavit sworn by this method can easily approach the actual cost of the service itself.

3.    The most expensive option, but surely the most unchallengeable, is for our affidavits to be sworn at the US Embassy in London. The fee there last time we went was $35, but we have to charge time and mileage to attend, typically $300 from our office. Some agents may be closer, but if the serve was in, say, one of our northern cities, a full day will be involved and the fee might be double or treble this amount.

You can now understand why we prefer witness statements, or affidavits sworn before a commissioner for oaths, the two methods we use to prove service in our courts.  You choice may well be guided by whether your court rules state that what is acceptable locally will be acceptable in the US court.

Sometimes, a US court has sought proof that an affidavit sworn over here is for real. Our Government's Foreign and Commonwealth Office offers a service of "Legalisation" of official documents, which should solve this problem. An Apostille is a Legalisation Certificate.

Legalisation is the official confirmation that a signature, seal or stamp on a document is genuine. But having a document legalised doesn’t mean that its contents are accurate, and it does not carry any sort of official approval by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. It merely confirms, in the case of an affidavit, that it was genuinely sworn in front of a solicitor.

The Government fee is £27 and we add a small charge to cover our administrative costs in carrying through the procedure. It is quite a slow process, but there are ways to fast track it, for a slightly higher fee. 

• Service papers
• Second set if mailing might be necessary
• Draft of return of service
• Instructions as to notarisation
• Detailed instructions covering all the matters in the list above
• Full contact details for your office, especially an email address
• Courier's account number or other instructions for return of proofs.

See our Contact page for address details. UPS and Fedex know us very well. It usually takes two working days for papers to reach us. Air Mail can often be nearly as quick, three to four days typically.