§ 8.01-293.Authorization to serve process, capias or show cause order; execute writ of possession or eviction and levy upon property.

Not everyone can hand a defendant a summons and make it count. Section 8.01-293 spells out who qualifies. A sheriff can serve process within the territorial bounds the Code sets for him. So can any person 18 or older who is not a party to the case and has no stake in its outcome — a broad category that lets law firms and litigants hire process servers or ask someone to make service. Two narrower carve-outs extend that same non-interested-party status: an Indigent Defense Commission investigator counts as disinterested only while serving witness subpoenas in the performance of his official duties, while a Commonwealth’s attorney’s investigator counts as disinterested more broadly, for any official-duty service, but only once the local sheriff has agreed to let that investigator serve process. A subpoena for a teacher or school employee served on school property in a custody or visitation case must go through the sheriff regardless. And a private process server — someone who charges a fee for the job — gets a specific definition of his own.

The section then draws a firmer line around more sensitive tasks. Executing a writ of possession or eviction, whether it involves personal, real, or mixed property, belongs to a sheriff or high constable alone. Serving a capias or show cause order can be handled by a sheriff, a high constable, or any law-enforcement officer. And levying on property is reserved for a sheriff, the high constable of Norfolk or Virginia Beach, or a treasurer.

The distinction reflects how much is at stake in each task. Handing over a summons is low-risk work that a wide range of people can competently do; putting someone out of a home or seizing property carries real consequences, so the law keeps those jobs with law-enforcement officers and treasurers.