Published on:
28 Jul 2025
3
min read
Image credit: Andrea Piacquadio; https://www.pexels.com/photo/job-applicant-passing-her-documents-3760072/
In Singapore, the general rule is that if you want to sue someone (a "Defendant"), you will need to serve the Court papers on the Defendant personally.¹
But what if you can't find the Defendant?
Well, you can then apply to the Court for permission to effect "substituted service" on the Defendant. In other words, you ask the Court for permission to serve the Court papers on the Defendant via, for example²:
(a) leaving the papers at their last known residential address;
(b) email;
(c) messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram;
(d) social media platforms;
(e) the Singpass app Inbox; and/or
(f) airdrop into a digital asset wallet.
After substituted service has been effected, one of two things usually happens:
(a) there is no sight or sound from the Defendant, in which case you would probably proceed to apply for and obtain "default judgment"³ against the Defendant; or
(b) the Defendant emerges and files a document in Court which states that they wish to contest your claims. At which point, game on.
But - ever so often - the Defendant eventually emerges...
...but doesn't actually contest your claims...
...and instead says:
"Hey, I was not in Singapore at the time when you started the court proceedings! So you shouldn't have applied for substituted service.
Instead, you should have first applied for permission to serve the court papers out of Singapore. But you didn't do so! So the supposed service is not effective, and you can't get any orders against me. Back to square one, sucka!"⁴
So what do you do?
And is it possible to avoid this situation in the first place?
--
In the next part, we'll explore what you can do if the Defendant raises such an objection.
Disclaimer:
The content of this article is intended for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
¹ In the case of an individual, this means literally handing the set of physical papers to the individual, or throwing them at their feet if they refuse to accept the papers.
Brendan Tan has a fun story about running pell-mell through a well-known tourist attraction in Singapore to catch an individual defendant who was in Singapore for a very small window of time. Like a high-stakes game of tag. It's a good thing we sent a triathlete down, and not, uh, someone who struggled⁵ to pass his IPPT.
² Probably not an exhaustive list.
³ This is akin to being awarded a walkover victory because the other team didn't turn up.
Which also means that the Court will grant whatever orders are being sought, and there will likely be no scrutiny of whether the claimant is even entitled to the orders being sought.
In other words, you could theoretically sue on an oral agreement and get a default judgment for 100 billion dollars.⁶
⁴ Lest I sound like I am favouring either party, I will just say that I have, from time to time, been on either side.
⁵ Past tense, because MR loh!
⁶ Please don't actually do this, unless you did really enter into such an agreement. Even then, I'm not going to go into the whole can of worms of how you'd go about enforcing such a judgment, what are the hurdles you might face, and how much real money you can realistically expect to get.
