WA No Response to Family Court Form 6 - What to Do?

[Julie Mag]

Other party not responding to attempts of service:

Service of Form 1 Initiating Application & Case Information Affidavit, etc. Service was attempted by hand to the other parties last known (was last witnessed by me there on 18 May 2016) residential address as follows:

Tuesday 7 June 2016 at 7:20pm (dogs were inside barking, it is believed that someone was home)

Thursday 9 June 2016 at 5:50pm (dogs were inside barking, it is believed that someone was home)

Friday 10 June 2016 at 4:30pm

Sunday 12 June 2016 at 1:45pm (it is believed that someone was home because there appeared to be sounds of footsteps and doors closing inside)

A telephone call from my husband (the person attempting service of the documents) to the other party was made on Sunday 12 June 2016 at 2:16pm. The call was not answered and a voice mail message was left requesting a return call to make arrangements for Service by hand. All documents were then scanned and sent via email Monday 13 June 2016 at 12:15am

Total number of pages transmitted via email, including a 1-page cover sheet was 52:

• Documents lodged on Monday 16 May 2016 and Filed Tuesday 24 May 2016:
  • 1 page Cover letter to the Registrar of the Family Court of Western Australia
    
    
  • 3 pages of 13 proposed orders
    
    
  • 10 pages Case Information Affidavit
    
    
  • 6 pages Form 1 – Initiating Application
    
    
  • 2 pages Exemption form
• Documents provided by Family Court of Western Australia for Service with the above documents:
  • 4 pages Brochure 1 – Parenting Cases
    
    
  • 4 pages Brochure 2 – Parenting Cases
    
    
  • 4 pages Brochure 3 –Case Assessment Conferences
    
    
  • 3 pages Brochure 5 – The Reediness Hearing
    
    
  • 5 pages Duty of Disclosure in Family Law Cases
    
    
  • 8 pages Marriage, Families & Separation
    
    
  • 1 page Form 6 – Acknowledgment of Service

The other party was requested that he himself or his legal representation are requested to please return the completed and signed 1 page Form 6 – Acknowledgment of Service by return email. Nothing has been received from the other party or his legal representation as yet.

I am wondering if it is enough to provide the form 7 affidavit of service outlining all attempts of service, along with a copy of the email that was sent?

 

[MartyK]

Exemption form? Someone other than you or your current husband, or someone related to you, might have been a better option as the person attempting service?

You can file a Form 7 if the documents have been served on a party and they refuse to sign the acknowledgement or you have made all other reasonable attempts at service.

 

[Julie Mag]

Exemption form? Someone other than you or your current husband, or someone related to you, might have been a better option as the person attempting service?

You can file a Form 7 if the documents have been served on a party and they refuse to sign the acknowledgement or you have made all other reasonable attempts at service.

Thank you Mark, I thought as much, although I wanted to check it out before I went down that road to find out that it was incorrect. It has been rather an interesting ride so far.

Have a wonderful day. Oh, the exemption form was exemption from mediation due to the nature of the case.

 

[Julie Mag]

I took a closer look at form 7 - Affidavit of service and there is nowhere that I can see that allows for my situation. I thought the same as you and thought that if the documents have been served on a party (either in person, electronically or whatever) and the other party refuse to sign the acknowledgement or you have made all other reasonable attempts at service, there would be somewhere you could state all attempts, etc.

There certainly is not unless you serve in person and they refuse to receive the documents and in turn refuse to acknowledge service. You can leave the documents at their feet and that is deemed as the person being served and you can complete the form 7 where it indicates that the documents were served and the acknowledgement was refused to be signed.

I spoke to Legal Aid Perth WA today after being on hold for 1.5 hours then getting them to call me back. They said that I (with the use of my husband or a friend doing the serving) could keep trying to serve the documents and then I would need to get a Process Server to serve the documents and take it from there. There was nothing else I can do besides that according to them! Bizzare!

The thing is, I simply don't understand why someone who was not seeing their child would not want to sort things out (by receiving the legal documents) quickly in order to be able to gain time with that child again. If my child chose not to spend time with me and the other parent was trying to make arrangements with me to rectify that and come up with a plan to ensure I still got to have time with my child, then I would be doing everything I could to get that happening.

The other party in my case is simply ignoring every chance I am providing him to have time with his child. Strange if you ask me! I can't work out what his tactic or strategy is this time. I just want to get it sorted in the best interests of the child and can't do that without him participating.