Form D89: When They Will Not Take the Papers

Form D89: Ask a Court Bailiff to Deliver Papers

Part of: Family Law Specialists

Form D89 asks the family court to send a bailiff to put your papers into the other person’s hands. You use it when the case has stopped moving. They will not accept, open or acknowledge what the court has sent (HM Courts & Tribunals Service). Two versions are live at once. Which one you need depends on the date the court issued your application, not on today’s date. Our divorce specialists assist and advise when service has stalled. This page covers the law of England and Wales only.

Reviewed by: Iblal Iqbal, Partner & Family Law Strategist, Kabir Family Law

What is form D89, and what does a court bailiff do?

It is a request, not an application for an order. You are asking a court officer to travel to an address and deliver documents to a named person face to face. GOV.UK describes it in one line: “Use this form to ask for a court bailiff to hand deliver papers to the other party in family court proceedings.”

The rule behind it is short. An applicant may ask for a bailiff to deliver a copy of the application to the respondent personally, and Practice Direction 6A sets out how to make that request (FPR r.6.9(1) and (2)). Nothing in that rule promises the bailiff will find them, and nothing in it makes the other person respond. It changes only how the papers travel.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. A bailiff who reaches the respondent produces proof that the papers reached them, and proof is what unlocks the next stage of the case. A bailiff who cannot reach them produces something almost as useful. That is evidence of failed service, which the court wants before it allows anything more unusual.

Which form D89 applies to your case: before or after 6 April 2022?

Work from the issue date on the notice the court sent you when it accepted your application. Both GOV.UK pages carry the instruction in a box at the top. The current one says “Only use this form if the court issued your application on or after 6 April 2022.” The older one says the mirror image of that, and links across.

People get this wrong because they reason from the wrong date. The question is not the date you fill the form in, and not the date of the marriage or the separation. The only date that counts is the one the court stamped on the application you cannot move. A case the court issued in February 2022, still running today, needs the older form, even though it dates from 2016.

What actually changed on 6 April 2022?

One thing did not change. Rule 6.9 itself reads word for word the same in both versions of the rules. Everything around it changed: the vocabulary, the timetable, the arrival of email service, and a new rule for serving someone living in a refuge. So HM Courts & Tribunals Service published a fresh form rather than amending the old one, and both remain on GOV.UK.

If your case predates the change, be aware that the rules governing it are no longer on the live Family Procedure Rules site. The current Part 6 applies only to applications issued on or after 6 April 2022. It sends readers with older cases to an archived copy of the previous Part 6. Anyone quoting the live rules at you about a 2021 case is quoting the wrong ones.

What does a D89 form request cost, and when is it free?

£47 on a request for service by a bailiff of any document, with a short list of exceptions. That figure appears both in the fees order and in the leaflet the courts publish, where it reads “Request for service by a bailiff for any document, £47” (Family court fees, EX50, read 20 September 2026).

The exceptions explain why so many people hear two different answers. The same fee table records “No fee” for bailiff service on a domestic abuse protection order application. The same goes for non-molestation, occupation, forced marriage and female genital mutilation protection orders. The fees order itself carves those applications out of fee 15.1 in the same way. So if you are applying for protection from abuse, the bailiff costs you nothing. The older GOV.UK page says so in as many words: “There’s no fee involved.”

Where a fee is payable and money is tight, the current form devotes a page to it and points to the help with fees scheme and the EX160 form. Nothing about that is automatic. The form’s own note is careful: you “may not have to pay a fee, or you may get some money off it” depending on savings, benefits and income.

When will the court agree to bailiff service?

Practice Direction 6A sets four conditions, and each one turns away a share of the requests that reach the court. They are worth reading before you pay anything.

• The address must be in England or Wales. “The court will only consider a request for personal service of the application by a bailiff if the address for service is in England and Wales” (para. 11.1). A bailiff will not cross a border for you.
• You should normally have tried post, and email where it applies, first. Para. 11.2 sets two limbs. No signed acknowledgment of service came back within 14 days of posting, and you reasonably believe the respondent still lives at that address.
• The request goes in writing, on the prescribed form, with the fee. You send evidence that post, and email where it applies, went out and failed, or you explain why post was never appropriate in the first place (para. 11.3).
• If someone is already acting for you, expect resistance. A request “will rarely be granted” in that situation, and you then have to show why a bailiff suits the case better than a process server (para. 11.4).

The second limb is the one that catches people. If you already suspect they have moved, a bailiff is the wrong tool. You would be sending a court officer to an address you do not believe in. The honest answer in that situation is a different application, not this one.

What does the current form D89 ask you for?

Ten numbered questions across eight pages. Most of them exist to help one person find another on a doorstep. The form is less about your case than about them.

What does the form ask about the other person?

• The case, and who they are. Type of case, their full name, their date of birth and their phone number. The guidance note gives examples of case type: “injuction, child arrangements, divorce, dissolution, separation etc.” The spelling error is in the published form, not here.
• A description, or a photograph. Height, hair colour, eye colour, ethnicity and any distinguishing marks or features. If you attach a photograph, the note is strict: it “must only contain an image of the respondent”.
• The best times to attempt it. One line, and one of the most useful on the form, because a bailiff who calls when nobody is in has still used your fee.
• Whether they are living in a refuge. Yes, no, or do not know. This question is new to the current version and it connects to a rule that limits personal service in those circumstances.
• The address, and any vehicle. Street, town, postcode, and the make, model, colour and registration of a car if you know it.

What does the D89 form ask you to confirm?

• Seven risk questions. Violence or violent convictions. Verbal or written threats. Police involvement, social services involvement, dangerous animals, mental health or substance use that may affect behaviour, and firearms licences or convictions. Each is yes, no or not known, with space to explain.
• A statement of truth. The form warns of “proceedings for contempt of court” against anyone who makes a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth, without an honest belief in its truth.
• Where the court should write to you. A warning sits beside it. If you have already given the court your address and want it kept from the respondent, do not enter it here.

The risk questions are not a formality and they are not there to test you. A bailiff attends alone. What you write there decides how the bailiff plans the visit, and leaving something out because it feels awkward helps nobody.

What happens after you send the D89 form?

The rules fix the sequence below. Knowing where the pauses fall is the difference between waiting calmly and chasing a court that has done nothing wrong.

1. You return it to the right place. The form says to send it to the court managing your case, and gives a separate central address for divorce and dissolution cases.
2. The court decides whether to consider it. Address in England or Wales, evidence of the attempts so far, and the fee or a help with fees reference (PD6A paras. 11.1 to 11.3).
3. A bailiff attempts personal service. The rule is delivery of a copy to the respondent personally, not posting it through the door (FPR r.6.9(1)).
4. The bailiff files a certificate of service. “Once service of the application has been effected or attempted by the bailiff he must file a certificate of service in the issuing court” (PD6A para. 12.1). Attempted counts, which is why a failed visit is still evidence.
5. If it fails, the court officer tells you. Where the bailiff is unable to serve the respondent, “the court officer will send notification to the applicant” (FPR r.6.22).
6. You go back to the court for another method. The rule points you straight there: where the bailiff cannot serve, the applicant may apply for an order for service by an alternative method or at an alternative place (FPR r.6.9(3)).

In a sole divorce application the clock you are really watching is elsewhere. The court sends the application and an acknowledgement of service notification. The other person “must respond” to it “within 14 days”. When that passes, GOV.UK offers comfort and no route: “If they still do not respond, the court will contact you and tell you what you can do.” The rules are more forthcoming.

What are the alternatives if the bailiff cannot serve the papers?

Four routes sit alongside the bailiff, and the right one depends on what you actually know about the other person. Choosing on instinct is how cases lose a season.

• Ask the court to serve at a different address. Where the court officer has notified you that postal or email service failed, you may ask that officer to serve at an alternative address (FPR r.6.8(4)). Cheapest, and often overlooked. One attempt only, though: once the officer has served after that request, “the court will not try to serve the application again” (r.6.8(5)).
• Apply for service by an alternative method or at an alternative place. Where there is “a good reason to authorise service by a method or at a place not otherwise permitted”, the court may direct one (FPR r.6.19). It may also treat steps you have already taken as good service. This is the route behind service by social media or to a work address. In a divorce case you make that application on a D11.
• Ask the court to treat the papers as already served. Where the application went by post or email, nothing came back, and the court is satisfied the respondent received it, the court may direct that the application counts as served (FPR r.6.16). Evidence is everything here, and our D11 guide explains what the court looks for.
• Ask the court to dispense with service altogether. Available only where service “is impracticable” by any method the rules provide, and you must support it with evidence (FPR r.6.20). It is a last resort and the court can make you attend to argue it.
• Instruct a process server. A private agent, paid privately, with no cap on the number of attempts. Practice Direction 6A treats this as the expected route where someone is already acting for you.

What if the papers are an application for protection from abuse?

Where your case is an application for protection from abuse rather than a divorce, the picture is different again. The rules require personal service on the respondent not less than two days before the hearing, and they forbid you from doing it yourself. Where you are acting in person, you may ask the court officer to serve for you (FPR r.10.3). Our guide to the non molestation order explains how that application works.

Before you send form D89: are you on track?

Pick the kind of case you are in, then tick what is already true. The list shows you what the court will be looking for and where your gaps are. It does not fill anything in and it does not decide anything for you.

Where a D89 form request goes wrong, and what it costs you

Almost none of the damage comes from filling in the boxes badly. It comes from sending the request at the wrong moment, or to the wrong problem.

• Downloading the wrong version. Two live pages, no warning on a search results page, and a form that looks plausible either way, whichever you open. The older one still says Petitioner and Co-Respondent, which is the quickest way to spot it.
• Sending it before trying post or email. Practice Direction 6A expects that in normal circumstances, and a request with no evidence of earlier attempts and no explanation invites a refusal.
• Using it when you doubt the address. The test is that you reasonably believe they are still living there. A bailiff sent to an address you have already doubted costs you the fee and several weeks.
• Paying a fee you did not owe. Fee 15.1 carves protection applications out entirely. People pay it because the current form’s fee page does not repeat the exemption.
• Putting your own address on the form. The note sits right beside the box, and it is easy to complete that page on autopilot after seven pages about somebody else.
• Treating a failed attempt as the end. It is not. A certificate of service filed after an attempt is precisely the evidence that supports the next application, and throwing away that momentum is the most expensive mistake on this list.

How do our specialists assist and advise when service has stalled?

Our specialists assist and advise from the first conversation. They work out which service route fits what you actually know about the other person. They also explain what evidence the court wants before it agrees to any of them. A specialist will also explain what a stalled case is doing to the rest of your timetable, and which parts of it you can still protect. If the papers in question are a divorce application, our guide to the D8 form explains the stage you are at.

A free initial consultation is a conversation with a specialist who gives you initial advice on your circumstances. It does not include drafting or reviewing documents. Before the call, it helps to have the date the court issued your application, a note of what went out and when, and anything that makes you doubt the address.

Frequently asked questions

General information about the law in England and Wales, not advice on your circumstances.

Expert Tip

People arrive convinced that a bailiff is the only way to make an ex face up to the case. Quite often the faster answer is an order allowing service by a method they cannot ignore, such as an email address or a work address they use daily. Before you pay anything, write down what you know about where they actually are and how they actually communicate. That list, not the form, is what decides the right route.

Garry Steedman, Family Law Consultant (Divorce, Children & TOLATA)