Florida’s Service of Process Rules

Florida is one of few states that highly regulates their process service industry. Florida has strict laws governing the service of process in the state, all of which are covered in Chapter 48 of the Florida Sunshine Statutes. In this post, we’ll highlight the most important parts of these laws, giving you the bare-bones rundown of Florida’s service of process rules.

Who Can Serve

Florida dictates that process must be served by a local sheriff or by an individual that meets the basic requirements and has been properly certified and/or approved by the sheriff or local judicial circuit. Judges may also appoint process servers on a case-by-case basis as they deem fit. The basic requirements set forth by Florida to be a process server include:

1. Be at least 18 years of age.
2. Have no mental or legal disability.
3. Be a permanent resident of the state.
4. Submit to a background investigation that includes the right to obtain and review the criminal record of the applicant.
5. Obtain and file with the application a certificate of good conduct that specifies there is no pending criminal case against the applicant and that there is no record of any felony conviction, nor a record of a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude or dishonesty, with respect to the applicant within the past 5 years.
6. Submit to an examination testing the applicant’s knowledge of the laws and rules regarding the service of process. The content of the examination and the passing grade thereon, and the frequency and the location at which the examination is offered must be prescribed by the sheriff. The examination must be offered at least once annually.
7. Take an oath that the applicant will honestly, diligently, and faithfully exercise the duties of a special process server.

Sheriffs or judicial circuits may add requirements to this list based on their discretion. They may also revoke their certification or approval at any time if the sheriff believes the process server is not doing their job correctly.

Serving Different People & Entities

Florida law extensively details how different people and entities should be served both inside and outside of the state. The state statutes have different sections for each of these special situations, which are too numerous to list ou here. You can references the statutes to find the section that pertains to your specific situation, including:

• Service on a minor
• Service on a business (different business types have different rules)
• Service on a person or business outside of the state
• Service on government agencies
• Service on a closed business
• Service of foreign process to someone in the state of Florida

This is just a fraction of the different scenarios accounted for by Florida law. Not many states are as meticulous as Florida when detailing what should and should not happen during service of process.

Certification of Process Servers

As mentioned above, all private process servers in Florida must be certified or otherwise approved by the local sheriff or judicial circuit where they intend to work. If the process server wants to work anywhere in Florida, they would need to seek certification and/or approval from all of Florida’s sheriff’s offices or judicial circuits. This would be quite a monumental undertaking, as Florida has 67 counties and 20 judicial circuits. Some counties leave process server certification completely up to the judicial circuit while others don’t even allow private process servers at all except under rare circumstances. Everything about the process of certifying process servers is included in Chapter 48.29 of the state statutes.

Consequences for Poor Behavior

Finally, Florida law discusses what can be done if a certified process server is found to be acting inappropriately or engaging in illegal activities, both while serving process and during their personal lives. Florida does not tolerate this type of behavior from process servers, and any process server that breaks Florida’s rules about process server behavior will likely find themselves removed from the list of certified process servers and banned from serving process in the state in the future.

Accurate Serve of Tally Follows All the Rules

If you need a process service agency that knows and follows all of Florida’s laws, then make Accurate Serve of Tallahassee your next call. Our servers are experienced, knowledgeable, and never take shortcuts or engage in undesirable behaviors. To start working with the best process servers in the capital, call us at 850-519-5494 or send us a work request online.