An Australian couple have been notified of the pending repossession of their home via Facebook.
In what represents a groundbreaking step in the world of social networking, an Australian couple have been served the repossession order for their home through the Facebook website.
Canberra based lawyer Mark MacCormack, was granted permission to use this innovative approach by the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court after all other attempts to contact the couple failed.
According to reports, Carmel Carbo and Gordon Poyser had failed to meet repayments on their $150,000 (£65,700) loan with mortgage provider MKMcapital. Consequently, law firm Meyer Vandenberg had been charged with task of finding the couple and serving them their repossession papers.
After repeated attempts to contact the couple at their home proved fruitless, MacCormack turned to Facebook.
A simple search for Carbo’s email address returned a positive result and the resourceful lawyer used information detailed on her mortgage application to confirm a match with her Facebook profile. Conveniently, Poyser was also registered on Facebook, with his profile listed under Carbo’s ‘friends’.
Once MacCormack had convinced Supreme Court Judge and social networking novice David Harper that Facebook was a legitimate means of contacting the couple and proved that he had exhausted all other avenues of communication, he was granted permission to serve the legal papers via the site. Judge Harper did however stipulate that details of the repossession order must be contained in a private message rather than be made publicly available on the couple’s Facebook profiles.
The couple now have 7 days to respond to the court before representatives of the mortgage company move in to reposes their home.
This represents a landmark case as while Australian courts have previously allowed legally binding judgements to be delivered via text message or email, this is the first time that lawyers have been given permission to exact the law through a social networking site.
