Using Facebook to Serve Foreclosure Notices?

One of the things which can delay legal cases, even foreclosure filings, is when the courts are having a hard time locating and serving the persons involved. In several other countries this particular problem has already been resolved. According to Facebook statistics, 30 percent of their 500 plus million users are in the United States and it is also currently the top social networking site beating Twitter and MySpace by far. Therefore it should be considered logical for lawyers or document servers to consider using it. In 2009, the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court granted a lawyer’s application to use Facebook to serve lien notices after several failed attempts of serving the documents in person and by e-mail. It was not even the first time the court has agreed to this as it previously allowed serving thru text messages and email.
        Last March, a British lawyer was also allowed to serve court summons to a debtor via Facebook. It was the very first time a British court allowed this and many viewed it as the court’s way of embracing technology and making court processes efficient and effective. It looks to me like more and more countries are adopting this practice of serving legal documents via Facebook. In the US, the practice has yet to be adopted and considering the growing trend among other countries, many people might be wondering if such practice will do more harm than good.
        When you hear news like this, it’s not surprising if your first thought would be about privacy concerns. For starters, Facebook is already under fire due to various issues concerning the privacy of their users and this could possibly be another. But based on the previous cases when legal notices were served via the social networking sites, it would seem the main objective is to make sure the person is notified. If e-mail, text message, fax and even personal visits don’t work, then why not consider Facebook? It can be a reliable and private method of serving foreclosure notices. Of course, there is also the problem of making sure that they’re serving the RIGHT person. This is the tricky part and such burden will be the responsibility of the lawyer, who will have to prove to the court the Facebook account holder is the person concerned.
          Considering most banks are up in their eyeballs in terms of foreclosure cases, serving foreclosure notices via Facebook might help them move ahead. They could even utilize the social networking site to contact the borrower immediately after the missed payment. Lenders can ask for the borrowers Facebook account during mortgage application to ensure all avenues of communication are open and if you’re going that far, you might as well use Facebook to submit and follow up with Short Sale files. It makes perfect sense to me.