Suppose that I have issued a civil claim against a defendant under the UK's Civil Procedure Rules [CPR] §8, which is a simplified procedure often used if no material disputes of fact are involved. The court has served the notice of issue of my claim on what I believe to be the defendant's address -- my reasons for which are documented in the claim -- and the court considers it to be served two business days after posting. If the defendant does not respond within the required 14-day period, under the rules, they are not allowed to submit evidence of a defence without the court's explicit permission.
Yet what happens if they claim no service at all -- or would, if they responded to it? What if the address is wrong, they have moved, or similar? How, practically, in the UK, are these issues decided?
Under CPR § 7 ("normal") proceedings, if they did not respond, I could file a request for judgement (quite simply -- e.g. using form N225 if a specific monetary amount is claimed) and, if everything proceeded "smoothly" to my benefit, and the judge was satisfied the claim was served correctly, I would likely win, and could therefore claim damages through recovering money from the defendant's bank account(s) should I know them. Yet CPR §8 specifically forbids requests for summary judgement, and as far as my reading goes, the entire rest of the procedures the rules as described assume that the defendant engages with them.
What happens, frankly, if they don't? Would it be likely that one would win a successful judgement against a defendant at an incorrect address? Or would the defendant likely request that the judgement be set aside and the case started anew, once they had "discovered" my pending action?