Evidenced Service
Evidenced service records that a document was sent, to whom, by what means and when, in a form you can rely on months later.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → Communication:
- Service Methods — the methods you serve by, and the deemed-service rule for each
- Letters — physical service through a print and post provider
- Message Log — the despatch record for electronic service
Architect Panel → Activity:
- Correspondence — the served item on the case file
Why "we wrote to you" is not enough
"We wrote to you on the 14th" is an assertion. Evidenced service is a record: the document exactly as sent, the address it went to, the method, and the timestamp. In a statutory or legal context the difference between those two decides appeals.
Keep the document as sent
This is the part most systems get wrong. If you store only a reference to a template, regenerating the letter later shows the current wording — not what the recipient received. Templates change; the served document must not.
Store the rendered document. It costs storage and settles arguments.
Service methods and deemed service
Service Methods defines how you serve and what the deemed-service rule is for each. Many statutory regimes deem service to have occurred a set period after despatch — second class post deemed served on the second working day, for instance.
Record the despatch date and let the deemed date derive from it, in working days where the rule says working days. Do not record deemed service as though it were an observed fact: it is a legal presumption, and conflating the two is exactly the kind of thing that unravels under scrutiny.
The strength of evidence differs by channel
- Letter through a print and post provider — a despatch confirmation from a third party. Strong, and independent of you.
- Email — a send record, and sometimes a delivery record. Not a read receipt, and not proof it reached a person.
- SMS — a delivery state from the carrier. Good evidence of arrival at a handset, none of who read it.
- Hand delivery — only as good as the record the person making it wrote.
Know which you have before you rely on it in correspondence, and never describe an email send record as proof of receipt.
Worked example — a licensing notice
A notice must be served on the licence holder with a right of appeal running from service. It is sent by second class post through the print provider, which returns a despatch confirmation. The service method's deemed rule adds two working days, producing the deemed service date, from which the appeal-window obligation is derived. The rendered notice, the despatch confirmation and the derived dates all sit on the case.
Worked example — a legal practice
A letter before action is served by email and by post on the same day. Both are recorded as separate service events with their own methods and deemed dates, because if the email address turns out to be wrong the postal service still stands. The rendered letter is identical in both, and stored once.
Recommendations
- Serve by two methods where the consequence is serious, and record both.
- Derive appeal and response windows from the deemed date, not from the despatch date, unless the regime says otherwise.
- Record returned mail. An address you keep serving after it bounced is one you will be asked about.
- Never regenerate a served document from a template to answer a query. Produce the stored one.