Papers DeliveredThe single biggest predictor of a first attempt serve is the quality of the information you hand over. Not the neighborhood, not the time of year, and not how much the person wants to avoid the papers. What you know before we knock decides most of it.
We serve papers across Michigan every week. The files that close fast and the files that drag look different on day one, before anyone has driven anywhere.
An Address Is a Hypothesis Until Someone Answers the Door
Most addresses we receive came from a lease, an application, a billing record or a database. All of those describe where a person was, not where they are tonight.
Tell us how old the address is and where it came from. A lease signed six weeks ago and a utility record from 2023 lead to completely different attempt plans, and we will schedule them differently.
If you have two possible addresses, send both. A second address on day one costs far less than a second round of attempts three weeks later.
The Name on the Papers Has to Match the Person at the Door
Send the full legal name, and send the variations too. Maiden names, married names, anglicized names, suffixes and common misspellings all matter at the threshold.
Junior and senior living at one address is one of the most common reasons a serve gets challenged later. If you know two people at that address share a name, say so before the first attempt.
A Physical Description Beats an Address
Approximate age, height, build, and whether the person has any distinctive feature. That is usually enough.
A description lets our server confirm identity when someone answers and gives a different name. Without one, an evasive person only has to say the wrong thing once and the attempt is wasted.
A photograph helps more than anything else on this list. A public profile picture you already have is fine.
Hours Are the Whole Game
Almost every failed attempt we review was made at a reasonable hour to a house where nobody was home. Reasonable and productive are not the same thing.
Tell us what you know about the person's schedule. Second shift, weekends only, works from home, travels for work, or has children at a school with a fixed pickup time. Each one points to a different window.
Vague guidance produces vague results. "Try evenings" is a much weaker instruction than "works days, home after 6, garage light on when the truck is there."
Access Notes Save Entire Trips
Gated communities, secured apartment lobbies, buzzer systems, front desks, private roads and dogs all change how an attempt is planned. None of them are obstacles if we know about them first.
If you have a gate code, a unit number, a building letter or a callbox name, send it. A unit number missing from an apartment address is one of the most common causes of a wasted attempt in Michigan.
Tell us about safety concerns as well. If there has been a threat, a weapon, or a hostile history, our server needs that before the door opens, not after.
Send the Deadline, Not Just the Task
A request to serve someone and a request to serve someone before a date are different jobs. The second one gets scheduled differently from the moment it arrives.
Give us the actual date you are working against and how much room is left. If the window is tight, we will front load the attempts instead of spacing them.
We wrote about how those windows work in the 91 day summons window in Michigan, and about what the paperwork has to show afterward in proof of service under MCR 2.104.
When the Address Turns Out to Be Wrong
Sometimes the first attempt establishes that the person does not live there anymore. That is a real result, and it is worth having early.
Our server documents what was observed. Who answered, what they said, whether the name is on the mailbox, whether a vehicle matches, and whether neighbors indicated anything. That record goes back to you so you can decide the next step.
Papers Delivered is a process serving company. Serving papers and documenting attempts is the whole of what we do. Skip tracing, court filing, document retrieval, notary and courier work all sit outside our services, so when an address fails, the next move stays yours.
The Short Version
If you send nothing else, send these eight things:
- Full legal name, plus any known variations
- Address, with the unit number, and where the address came from
- How recent that address information is
- Any second possible address
- Approximate age, height and build, and a photograph if you have one
- Known work schedule or the hours the person is likely home
- Access details: gate codes, buzzers, front desks, dogs, safety concerns
- The date you are working against
That list takes a few minutes to fill in and it routinely turns a four attempt file into a one attempt file.