GUIDELINES FOR ESSENTIAL/URGENT WORK
Please note that during this Covid-19 crisis, our current Terms and Conditions are necessarily conditional upon operational restrictions imposed by outside Agencies, which are beyond our control.
Please be aware that our office hours may fluctuate from day to day, and that we can not guarantee that we will process your instructions on the day of receipt. For all urgent matters please contact our office on our main number 01 8722311. If your call is not answered please leave your contact number and details in relation to your query and we will call you back as soon as we can. Please be aware, our usual email address, agency@pearts.ie, cannot be monitored at this time. Please, instead, email John Byrne jbyrne@pearts.ie for the time being.
POST/DX
As an essential precaution, Items sent to Pearts by DX or Post will not be opened for two days after receipt and thereafter the work will be processed following the safety guidelines we have put in place. Although we cannot guarantee a 24-hour turn around as we usually try to do, we would be hoping to have completed work back to you as soon as practicable.
For essential/urgent filings that must be processed on or before the 14th April we will request an appointment in the Court Offices to deal with same. However, these documents must be received by us at least 2 days in advance of the deadline date.
All essential/urgent work must be accompanied by a letter setting out the urgency or the date that the statute expires.
SUMMONSES
As the Central Office is now operating an appointment system only, properly prepared summonses, that are deemed essential/urgent, will need to be with us no less than 2 days before the critical date for issue. All Summonses should be emailed to us, with confirmation that the Stamp Duty has been sent by EFT. Summonses that must be issued prior to the 14th April can be e-mailed to jbyrne@pearts.ie and should be sent in advance of the deadline date.
Critical information and your argument for urgency will need to accompany your instructions.
If time-sensitive, the date of expiry of the Statute of Limitations must be provided.
ESSENTIAL FILINGS
We will endeavour to file all essential documents within the guidelines as set out in the most recent Courts Service Practice Direction. We will acknowledge all papers received, even those which, due to restrictions, we are unable to process.
As service of documents would be difficult at this time, we will not be serving papers on your behalf. They will be returned for service.
NOTICES OF RE-ENTRY
Where Motions have been ‘Adjourned Generally Liberty to Re-enter’ pursuant to the recent direction of the President of the High Court, we would intend to prepare for you a draft Notice of Re-entry, to ensure maximum efficiency once dates for re-entry have been confirmed by The Courts Service.
We will be arranging to return all of these papers that we currently hold, as they may be required to be updated, or perhaps may not be proceeding. When returning these Motions to you, we will enclose a separate letter with details of re-entry and enclosing the draft Notice of Re-entry.
PROBATE OFFICE WORK
We are in regular communication with the officials there and have now been advised that as and from now, they will not be operating any face to face appointments. There will be no Grants issued during this time. Papers will be processed behind closed doors in the Probate Office in the hopes to get Applications ready to have Grants issued, when the office is back up and running in the normal way.
The only exception to this is Ad Litem Applications.
There is a dropbox facility in The Probate Office, with papers being returned by post or DX. If we need to avail of the dropbox facility on your behalf, we will include with the papers, an envelope with our address and DX number on it, to ensure that we can receive your papers back for you, and monitor their progress in this way.
We understand, however, that any papers that may have already been dropped in, prior to today, will receive attention.
COURTS SERVICE
Our service to you is in strict compliance with the operational restrictions placed on us by the Courts Service.
We would expect that updates will continue to be posted on Courts.ie and you might continue to monitor there for the most recent information.
Thank you again for your continued support and understanding during these tough times.