Fla. Stat. § 49.021

This is the official text of Fla. Stat. § 49.021, part of Florida’s Stat — part of the compiled statutory law of Florida, published by the state as "Stat." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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49.021 Service of process by publication, upon whom.

Official statutory text

Where personal service of process or, if appropriate, service of process under s. 48.194 cannot be had, service of process by publication may be had upon any party, natural or corporate, known or unknown, including:

(1) Any known or unknown natural person, and, when described as such, the unknown spouse, heirs, devisees, grantees, creditors, or other parties claiming by, through, under, or against any known or unknown person who is known to be dead or is not known to be either dead or alive;

(2) Any corporation or other legal entity, whether its domicile be foreign, domestic, or unknown, and whether dissolved or existing, including corporations or other legal entities not known to be dissolved or existing, and, when described as such, the unknown assigns, successors in interest, trustees, or any other party claiming by, through, under, or against any named corporation or legal entity;

(3) Any group, firm, entity, or persons who operate or do business, or have operated or done business, in this state, under a name or title which includes the word “corporation,” “company,” “incorporated,” “inc.,” or any combination thereof, or under a name or title which indicates, tends to indicate or leads one to think that the same may be a corporation or other legal entity; and

(4) All claimants under any of such parties.

Unknown parties may be proceeded against exclusively or together with other parties.

History: s. 2, ch. 20452, 1941; s. 7, ch. 22858, 1945; s. 5, ch. 67-254; s. 6, ch. 93-250.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.