What can I do if someone is deliberately avoiding being served with a lawsuit in Ontario?

If a defendant is genuinely dodging service — refusing to answer the door, avoiding a known address, or otherwise making personal delivery impractical — Ontario courts can allow alternatives rather than letting evasion block a lawsuit indefinitely. The first step is usually documenting the attempts: dates, times, and what happened at each try, ideally with an affidavit from whoever attempted service describing the pattern of avoidance. This record becomes the evidence supporting a motion for substituted service, letting the court authorize another method reasonably likely to bring the claim to the defendant's attention, such as mail to a known address, delivery to a family member, or in some cases email or social media.

Courts generally want to see genuine, documented effort before granting this kind of order, rather than a plaintiff jumping to an alternative method after only a token attempt. Depending on how serious the evasion is, a court can also authorize service by posting documents at a known residence, or combine multiple methods to increase the odds the defendant actually receives notice. Persistent, well-documented attempts at the outset make the eventual substituted service motion considerably stronger and faster to obtain.