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Sometimes. For many documents, valid service does not require handing them to the named person at all: leaving them at the person's usual or last known address is a permitted method under the Civil Procedure Rules, so documents accepted by a family member or flatmate can amount to good service. But where the rules or a court order require personal service, an injunction, a bankruptcy petition, an order with a penal notice, handing documents to someone else is not enough.
The answer depends on a distinction the general public rarely has cause to know: the difference between personal service and service at an address.
The Civil Procedure Rules permit many documents to be served by delivering them to, or leaving them at, the correct address for service, for an individual, typically their usual or last known residence. The rule is about the place, not the recipient's hands. So where a spouse, adult relative or housemate takes the envelope at the door, or the server posts it through the letterbox of the confirmed address, service can be perfectly valid even though the named person never met the server. This is also why moving without updating the other side does not defeat service: last known residence can remain the good address if reasonable steps to find the current one are taken.
Personal service means the individual themselves. Where a rule, practice direction or court order requires it, injunctions and non molestation orders, orders carrying penal notices, bankruptcy petitions, and statutory demands where practicable, leaving documents with a partner or colleague does not comply, however willing they are to pass them on. In those cases the server must locate and identify the individual, which is precisely the professional part of the job, and where they cannot, the route is a court application for alternative service, sometimes authorising service through a specific third party the evidence shows will reach them.
If documents for you were left with someone in your household, do not assume a technicality saves you: for most documents it will not, and deadlines are likely running. And for anyone instructing service, the discipline is knowing which regime the document sits in before choosing the method, because a valid shortcut for one document is a void service for another.
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This page provides general information about the law and practice in England and Wales and is not legal advice. Rules change and individual circumstances vary; always take advice from a solicitor on your specific situation. Prices shown are indicative, exclusive of VAT and confirmed in writing before any work begins.