The New York City DCA Law.

On April 10th 2010 New York City  Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed Proposed Bill 6-A adding new requirements to the current licensing law.  You can find a complete version of this bill here www.nyc.gov/html/dca/downloads/pdf/local_law_7_of_2010_process_servers.pdf. NYSPPSA President Larry Yellon, NYSPPSA Treasurer Bill Mlotok, and NYSPPSA Member Rob Gillis went and met with the DCA to discuss the application of the Law with the DCA.  At that meeting we met with Deputy Commissioner Fran Freedman, Director Of Legislation Andrew Eiler, Deputy General Counsel Sanford M. Cohen, and General Council and Deputy Commissioner for Legal  Marla Tepper.  At this time the DCA has not come up with an official report but we felt the following bullet points would be helpful

• The $10,000.00 Bond for Individual Process Server or the $1000.00 fund.

All Independent Contractors acting as process servers must have a $10,000.00 bond meeting the requirements stated in the new law. DCA will not be adding additional provisions to the bonding, they stated that it will be up to the Independent Contractor to get the bond based on the requirements written in the law. NYSPPSA will be working hard with underwriters to try and get as many Process Servers Qualified. If you do not qualify for the bond the bill allows Process Servers to put up 1,000.00 NON_REFUNDABLE fee to be placed in a fund for fines and legislative judgments. This fee may or may not be a onetime fee. Meaning the process server may have to pay $1,000.00 at every renewal. The DCA is contemplating a monthly payment plan for that fund.

• The $100,000.00 Bond for Agencies.

Like the Independent Contractor Bond for Process Servers, DCA does not plan on elaborating on the bond and is expecting Process Serving Agencies to use the requirements written in the law as basis for the bond. NYSPPSA is contacting as many writers as possible to help our members get approved for this bond. There is no provision in the law for a contingency plan if an Agency cannot qualify for the bond. DCA has informed us that if agencies cannot get the bond it is best to collect the rejections in writing from the bond companies and appeal to the city council to make changes into the law.

• GPS

DCA does plan on having standard requirements for Collection of GPS coordinates but at this time nothing is official. The DCA and NYSPPSA strongly recommends that agencies and process servers DO NOT invest their money into a system until the requirements are official! As soon as NYSPPSA is aware of the requirements we let all of you know.

• Digital Records

DCA has informed us that although there is no official decision made on how the digital records will be kept but they believe that if an Agency stores their affidavits as a pdf and has the ability to search those pdf’s via a searchable database than that agency will be in compliance. Again this is not official. They will be considering many different ideas as well for agencies and process servers.

• Education and Testing

DCA must now administer a test on process serving. They have not begun the process of creating this test nor the pamphlet that they must give to every Process Server at the time of application. It is important to note that the pamphlet is not a study guide for the Exam. Once the test is out NYSPPSA does plan on developing and offering a class designed specifically designed to help educate process servers so that they can pass the exam.

The DCA has explained to us, that according to law, the rules must be made public and a public hearing on those rules must be had prior to those rules being enacted. As soon as NYSPPSA informed about these rules and this hearing we will immediately inform our Membership.

If you have any questions regarding the above please contact us at admin@nysppsa.org.

Sincerely,
Larry Yellon