In August 2025 the High Court reminded us that where a summons or a document levying execution of a judgment is served at an address chosen by the debtor as their domicilium citandi et executandi, the service at that address is proper service for court proceedings, regardless of whether the intended recipient is absent or whether it is still their address at all.
If a party has chosen a domicilium citandi, service of process at such a place will be good, even though the address is a vacant piece of ground, or the defendant is known to be resident abroad, or has abandoned the property, or cannot be found, or has moved to a different address.
It is generally accepted in our practice that the choice of a domicilium citandi is applicable only to the service of process in legal proceedings. Parties to a contract may also choose the address as their address for service of notices under the contract. The consequences of such a choice is in principle the same, namely that service at the address chosen is good service, whether or not the addressee is present at the time.
In the present case, the applicant, who had signed as surety for a principle debtor, was applying for rescission of a judgment against her arising from a summons served at her chosen domicilium citandi address. She contended that she was not living there when the summons was served. The court held that the applicant’s contention that service of the summons at her former home rendered service improper “holds no water.”
Contracts usually do, and should, entitle the contracting parties to change their domicilium citandi and address for notices. It is easy years later to forget about the appointment of an address for service. Care must be taken to keep such addresses up to date.