Was I served if I was given papers, but didn’t sign for anything?
“Was I served if I was given papers, but didn’t sign for anything?”
Many of the lawsuits that we deal with involve debt collectors, and this is a good question to be asking.
It’s incredibly important to understand when you’re served because that triggers your deadline to answer the lawsuit.
You have 14 days to answer if you were sued in Small Claims or District court, and you have 30 days if you were sued in Circuit court. All of this is from when you were served.
You don’t have to sign anything in order to be served.
If they give the papers to you, you have been served.
They can give the papers to an adult that lives with you and isn’t just a visitor, then you were served.
You can even be served by certified mail.
It’s important to know whether or not you’ve been served, and not assume anything.
Recently we were talking with someone, and they said that they were handed their lawsuit 5 years ago, and they were told to sign for it.
However, 3 weeks ago, they were handed the lawsuit but weren’t asked to sign anything, so they ignored it.
Their deadline was 14 days, and they waited 3 weeks (21 days) to respond.
Now, we were able to catch it and fix it before they received a default judgment.
However, we highly recommend that you make no assumptions.
If you know that you’ve been given lawsuit papers, take immediate action.
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
If you’re unsure whether or not you’ve been served, feel free to get in touch with us. We’d be glad to look in the court system and see if there is a lawsuit against you.
We’d be glad to help you in any way we can.
You can reach us by phone at 1-205-879-2447, or you can fill out a contact form and we will get in touch with you quickly.
We look forward to chatting with you!
Thanks for reading, and have a great day.
PS — You might find our series where we answer 150 questions about debt collection lawsuits to be helpful.
You might also enjoy our overview of a debt collection lawsuit in small claims or district court.
A detailed overview of your five options when sued by a debt buyer