Dispatch desk / Coverage / Bermuda
Service of process in Bermuda
Bermuda is not geographically Caribbean, but the work is the same work and US firms send it to us for the same reason: an exempted company, an insurer or a reinsurer with a registered office in Hamilton, and a document that has to be put into the right hands in the right way.
What the Bermuda desk handles
- Service at a registered office or corporate services provider in Hamilton
- Service on insurers, reinsurers and captive insurance entities
- Service on directors, trustees and authorised representatives
- Personal service of summonses, complaints, petitions and subpoenas
- Statutory demands and letters before action
- Residential service across all nine parishes
- Trace and locate where the address you hold has gone stale
- Swearing of the Affidavit of Service before a Notary Public or attorney
- Court document retrieval in Hamilton
If what you have is not on this list, ask. We will tell you plainly whether it can properly be served here.
A small island, and that cuts both ways
Bermuda is roughly twenty-one square miles. Everything is close, and everyone is known.
That makes an attempt quick: there is no half-day drive and no boat to catch. It also means discretion matters more than usual. A process server who arrives loudly at a Hamilton office, or at a house in Paget, is remembered — and word travels before the second attempt. We work quietly for that reason.
For corporate service, give us the exact registered name and the registration number if you have it. Many exempted companies have no staff in Bermuda at all; the registered office is the whole of their physical presence. Tell us whether the document is for the entity or for a named officer, and in what capacity, because that decides where we go.
Addresses here are often a house name and a parish rather than a number and a street — that is normal and workable. What is not workable is a post office box. Bermuda relies heavily on boxes, so if that is all you hold, tell us and we will treat it as the starting point for a trace.
Timing, and what comes back to you
Usually a matter of days. Hamilton keeps ordinary business hours and the island is small enough that a residential attempt can be repeated at different times of day without a travel cost.
- A court-ready Affidavit or Certificate of Service, sworn locally
- A record of every attempt — date, time, address and who was spoken to
- A description of the person served and the circumstances of the handover
- Photographs of the location where lawful and practical
- Progress updates by email or WhatsApp while the matter is live
- A reasoned report if service cannot be effected, with what we established about the true address
- A single point of contact who knows your file, start to finish
Why instruct us in Bermuda
Because the failure mode here is almost never distance — it is a wrong entity name, a document tendered to somebody who cannot properly accept it, or an approach so clumsy that the second attempt is expected. We get the first attempt right.
And because you deal with one person, from the first email to the sworn affidavit, who can tell you what actually happened at the door.
English throughout. Ask us about the correct route before you send: the Hague Service Convention was extended to Bermuda by the United Kingdom, and we will advise whether personal service by us suits your document or whether it should be transmitted through the central authority. Either way, we handle it and you keep one point of contact.