{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/rules-of-the-supreme-court-writ-and-appearance-1979/article-9",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/rules-of-the-supreme-court-writ-and-appearance-1979/article-9.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/1979/1716",
  "legislation_title": "The Rules of the Supreme Court (Writ and Appearance) 1979",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/rules-of-the-supreme-court-writ-and-appearance-1979",
  "path": "article/9",
  "kind": "article",
  "number": "9",
  "heading": null,
  "text": "For Order 12, rule 1, there shall be substituted the following rule:—\n“Mode of acknowledging service\n1 (1) Subject to paragraph (2) and to Order 80, rule 2, a defendant to an action begun by writ may (whether or not he is sued as a trustee or personal representative or in any other representative capacity) acknowledge service of the writ and defend the action by a solicitor or in person.\n(2) The defendant to such an action who is a body corporate may acknowledge service of the writ and give notice of intention to defend the action either by a solicitor or by a person duly authorised to act on the defendant's behalf but, except as aforesaid or as expressly provided by any enactment, such a defendant may not take any step in the action otherwise than by a solicitor.\n(3) Service of a writ may be acknowledged by properly completing an acknowledgment of service, as defined by rule 3, and handing it in at, or sending it by post to, the appropriate office, that is to say, if the writ was issued out of the Central Office, that office, or if the writ was issued out of a district registry, that registry.\n(4) If two or more defendants to an action acknowledge service by the same solicitor and at the same time, only one acknowledgment of service need be completed and delivered for those defendants.\n(5) The date on which service is acknowledged is the date on which the acknowledgment of service is received at the appropriate office.”",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1979/1716/article/9",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T19:07:56.027162+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}