How to Serve NRAI (National Registered Agents) in California

NRAI shares a suite, a counter, and a parent company with CT Corporation. The serve is easy. Naming the right agent on the proof is where files get hurt.

National Registered Agents, Inc. is the other Wolters Kluwer agent brand at 330 N Brand Blvd, Suite 700, Glendale, CA 91203. Same building as CT Corporation, same floor, same service-of-process intake counter, same 7:00am-to-1:00pm weekday window. If your defendant's Secretary of State registration names NRAI, everything in the CT Corporation guide about mechanics applies here. What deserves its own article is the distinction between the two, because the shared counter makes it invisible in the field and very visible in a motion attacking service.

Two brands, one suite, and why it matters

Your defendant did not designate "the counter at Suite 700." It designated a specific corporate agent by name, and that name is on its registration: CT Corporation System for some entities, NRAI for others. The proof of service has to recite service on the agent actually designated. Papers dropped at the right address but attributed to the wrong sister brand invite exactly the kind of technical challenge that turns a clean default into a briefing schedule. The fix costs nothing: pull the defendant's record on the Secretary of State's bizfile database before the serve and carry the agent's exact name into the field and onto the POS-010.

The section 1505 roster, and verifying the hand you serve

Because NRAI is a corporation acting as an agent, Corporations Code section 1505 requires it to file a certificate naming the employees authorized to accept service on its behalf. That certificate is the legal bridge between handing papers to a person at a counter and having served your defendant under Code of Civil Procedure section 416.10. On our NRAI serves we verify the accepting employee against the current 1505 roster, record their name and title on the proof, and photograph the delivery with GPS and timestamp. If service is ever challenged, the declaration answers the challenge before it is finished being made.

The mechanics, compressed

Verify the agent designation on bizfile the day of the serve. Arrive at Suite 700 inside the weekday intake window, 7:00am to 1:00pm, with the copy set for each defendant. The counter logs the case and accepts. Service is personal and complete on delivery: no prior attempts required, since diligence attempt counts belong to substituted service on individuals, and no 10-day mailing tail. POS-010 item 6d, section 416.10 box, defendant's name on the "on behalf of" line, accepting employee in item 3b.

One planning note: the intake window is NRAI's business practice, not law, and it closes hard at 1:00pm. We run the corridor from about ten minutes away and plan arrivals before 12:30pm, which is also why corridor drops carry a next-business-day guarantee: documents in today are at the counter inside tomorrow's window.

Angel City Legal is a registered process server, not a law firm. This article describes California service procedure for general information; it is not legal advice about your case.