Court has had my address incorrect for a long while now, causing me to not receive notices. Can I backdate the Notice of Change of Address form?

[seeking.legal.advice]

Jurisdiction

California

I'm referring to this form here: Notice of Change of Address or Other Contact | California Courts | Self Help Guide

Due to some error of the court, they have had my incorrect address for quite some time now. Therefore, can I backdate in question 1 ("as of _____[date]") or do I have to put today's date? The reason I would like to backdate is so that if any notices were sent that I missed, I'd like the judge to know that the reason is because the court has had an incorrect address for me for quite some time.

Thank you.

 

[adjusterjack]

My opinion for the two cents that it's worth is that the "as of" date is the date you actually changed your address.

If you have a court case in progress I suggest checking the case file to see if any notices were sent that you didn't respond to.

If there weren't any then just check the docket in a week or two to make sure your new address showed up.

 

[Tax Counsel]

The address is the one to which mail should be sent, which might not be where you live. I would just use today's date as today is the date you realized that mail needed to be sent to a different address. Doing that would help support you in the argument that you didn't know the address was wrong until now. The purpose of this form is simply to update where notices should be sent going forward. Neither the court or anyone else can send you documents sent in the past to the new address as we don't have time travel yet. So back dating it serves no purpose that I can see. Whatever date you use, if you missed something important because the address was wrong you can make the argument that you didn't know it was wrong. That argument will be better if the address the court used was one you had never used. You also face the issue that litigants are supposed to check their court files periodically to make sure everything is correct and that nothing got missed. What a judge would do if an issue came up that turned on the delivery or service of some document you didn't get but had to respond to is impossible to predict. A lot will depend the impact that attempting to fix the problem by allowing you to respond now would have on the case. If this is a small claims case then as I recall each county in California has a small claims advisor to whom you may ask these kinds of questions. You'd ask the advisor for the county in which the court hearing the case is located.

 

[welkin]

I'm referring to this form here: Notice of Change of Address or Other Contact | California Courts | Self Help Guide

Due to some error of the court, they have had my incorrect address for quite some time now. Therefore, can I backdate in question 1 ("as of _____[date]") or do I have to put today's date? The reason I would like to backdate is so that if any notices were sent that I missed, I'd like the judge to know that the reason is because the court has had an incorrect address for me for quite some time.

Thank you.

That is like trying to un-ring a bell.

 

[zddoodah]

causing me to not receive notices.

You posted on a board that relates to "Small Claims & Municipal Court." California hasn't had municipal courts for more than a quarter century, so I assume you're in a small claims court in California. Correct?

Are you the plaintiff or the defendant?

What notices did you not receive? What happened as a result of you not receiving these notices?

How did the court have an incorrect address for you? Was the incorrect address an old address? If so, did you have a forwarding order?

The reason I would like to backdate is so that if any notices were sent that I missed, I'd like the judge to know that the reason is because the court has had an incorrect address for me for quite some time.

If? In the header of your post, you wrote that you actually did miss notices. Now you seem to be equivocating. Did you actually miss any notices?

How long is "quite some time"?

Note that there are few, if any, notices sent out in California small claims cases. The plaintiff files the statement of claim and serves it on the defendant, and then the parties show up for the trial date that is stamped on the statement of claim. The only time the court would send out a notice before trial would be a notice of continuance of the trial date. There will also be a notice of entry of judgment. Anything else would be fairly uncommon.