Service On A Family Member At The Defendant’s Usual Place Of Residence Is Constitutes Abode Service Even If The Family Member Does Not Reside With The Defendant

In Central Mortgage Co. v. Kamarauli, 2012 IL App (1st) 112353 (Nov. 5, 2012), the mortgagee brought a residential mortgage foreclosure against the mortgagors. The mortgagors, husband and wife, were each served by substitute service on the wife’s mother who accepted service at the mortgagor’s usual place of residence. The process server reported that the wife’s mother resided at the property address. Following the entry of a default judgment of foreclosure and sale, the mortgagors moved to quash service arguing that there was no abode service because the wife’s mother did not reside with them. The motion was supported by affidavits from the defendants and the wife’s mother attesting to the fact that she lived somewhere else. The trial court denied the motion and the mortgagors appealed. In affirming the circuit court’s ruling, the appellate court found that section 2-203(a) of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure requires that for abode service to be valid, service must be made by leaving a copy at defendant’s usual place of abode, with some person of the family or a person residing there…. The appellate court held that under the plain language of section 2-203(a) a copy could be left either with a family member or a person residing in service address because the disjunctive or separated between these two alternatives. Other Illinois courts have decided that persons residing in the same household fall with within the legal meaning of family. So, to read Section 2-203(a) to require that a person of the family also reside with them, renders the phrase, or a person residing there, meaningless and superfluous. Accordingly, even if the wife’s mother did not reside with the mortgagors the requirements of section 2-203(a) for service on a family member were satisfied.

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