england-and-wales eviction
Does it matter legally whether possession notices, orders, and warrants served by post are sealed in envelopes?
<p>Are there legal benefits or detriments in terms of the rules of valid service whether such documents are sealed in an envelope or posted bare as postcards?</p>
<p>If it is bare then there's less way to argue it could have gotten mixed up in the rest of the mail that one might or might not bother to open so one could easily imagine service requirements that these be posted unsealed.</p>

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<h2>General rule</h2>
<p>It doesn't make any difference. <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1978/30/section/7" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1978</a> provides:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Where an Act authorises or requires any document to be served by post
(whether the expression “serve” or the expression “give” or “send” or
any other expression is used) then, unless the contrary intention
appears, the service is deemed to be effected by properly addressing,
pre-paying and posting a letter containing the document and, unless
the contrary is proved, to have been effected at the time at which the
letter would be delivered in the ordinary course of post.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Provided you meet the following elements:</p>
<ul>
<li>Properly addressing</li>
<li>Properly pre-paying</li>
<li>Properly posting,</li>
</ul>
<p>then you can take advantage of the above deemed delivery rule.</p>
<p>It also makes no difference whether or not the recipient &quot;might or might not bother to open&quot; it. What matters is when it was <em>delivered</em>. The rebuttable presumption is that the notice is effective when it would have been &quot;delivered  in the ordinary course of post&quot; (e.g. next day for first class, etc.). To rebut that, the burden of proof shifts to the recipient, who must prove (on balance of probabilities in a civil case) that it was delivered late or not at all. In practice that will be extremely difficult in the majority of cases.</p>
<p>You might try to make an argument that &quot;letter containing the document&quot; implies an envelope. However, in my view, the ordinary meaning of the word letter means a piece of paper with some written words on it. A letter is still a letter even when it isn't inserted in an envelope. &quot;Contains the document&quot; suggests to me that the document is found within the words written on the piece of paper.</p>
<h2>Exceptions</h2>
<p>The phrase &quot;unless the contrary intention appears&quot; means that if a particular Act contains its own rules of service which contradict Section 7, then Section 7 will be overridden.</p>
