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Section 79: Service of documents

Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 · 2003 c. 38View on legislation.gov.uk

Part 8: High hedges

A notification or other document required to be given or sent to a person by virtue of this Part shall be taken to be duly given or sent to him if served in accordance with the following provisions of this section.

Such a document may be served—

by delivering it to the person in question;
by leaving it at his proper address; or
by sending it by post to him at that address.

Such a document may—

in the case of a body corporate, be served on the secretary or clerk of that body;
in the case of a partnership, be served on a partner or a person having the control or management of the partnership business.

For the purposes of this section and of section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1978 (c. 30) (service of documents by post) in its application to this section, a person’s proper address shall be his last known address, except that—

in the case of a body corporate or their secretary or clerk, it shall be the address of the registered or principal office of that body; and
in the case of a partnership or person having the control or the management of the partnership business, it shall be the principal office of the partnership.

For the purposes of subsection (4) the principal office of—

a company registered outside the United Kingdom, or
a partnership carrying on business outside the United Kingdom,

shall be their principal office within the United Kingdom.

If a person has specified an address in the United Kingdom other than his proper address within the meaning of subsection (4) as the one at which he or someone on his behalf will accept documents of a particular description, that address shall also be treated for the purposes of this section and section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1978 as his proper address in connection with the service on him of a document of that description.

Where—

by virtue of this Part a document is required to be given or sent to a person who is an owner or occupier of any land, and
the name or address of that person cannot be ascertained after reasonable inquiry,

the document may be served either by leaving it in the hands of a person who is or appears to be resident or employed on the land or by leaving it conspicuously affixed to some building or object on the land.

About this text

This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.