Lawyer uses facebook to serve legal documents

A lawyer served notice on an Australian couple that they had lost their home by using the social networking website Facebook.

The Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court approved lawyer Mark McCormack’s application to use Facebook to serve legally binding documents to tell the Canberra couple that they had lost their house after defaulting on a loan.

But Mr McCormack, who represents a mortgage lender, said today he did not expect the popular site would become the method of choice for lawyers wanting to serve court documents.

He said courts had to be satisfied that the documents cannot be served personally or at a person’s last known address.