What is Substituted Service?

 An order from the Court for substituted service will allow an applicant to satisfy the Court’s service requirements without complying with the usual process. The order for substituted service usually allows for a third party, other than your spouse, to be served in place of your spouse or will allow for service of the Application for Divorce to occur via an alternative medium such as email, text message or even Facebook.

 What is Dispensation of Service?

 An order for dispensation of service is more challenging as it is the Court allowing that the respondent not be served with the Application for Divorce at all. To succeed in getting an order for dispensation of service, you will need to satisfy the Court that you have made all reasonable attempts to locate your spouse, including the following steps:

1.  Enquiring with friends or family members who may know the location of your spouse;
2.  Performing a skip trace search;
3.  Enquiring with your spouse’s last known employer.

 Once all reasonable avenues of locating your spouse are exhausted, you will then be required to file an affidavit with the Court setting out the steps you have taken to locate your spouse, the costs incurred and any replies received from those lines of enquiry. If the Court is satisfied that there are no more reasonable steps that could be taken to locate your spouse, an order for dispensation of service will be made.