Family Justice

The Best Option for You

If You Go to Provincial Court

If you file your application at a Family Justice Registry in Vancouver (Robson Square), Surrey, or Kelowna

The BC Attorney General announced new rules for Provincial (Family) Court in late 1998, including a rule to ensure families are aware that court is not the only option for settling child custody, guardianship, access and support issues, and that they have the right to choose the best option for themselves and their children.

To test this new rule and its effectiveness in helping BC families, six Provincial Court Registries are participating in the Family Justice Registry Project. As a result, if you file an application to obtain or change a child custody, guardianship, access or support order at any one of these six courthouses - Vancouver (Robson Square), Surrey, or Kelowna - your case will be included under the new rule.

That means, unless your case is urgent (your safety or the safety of your children is at risk, for example), you and your spouse will need to complete the following steps:

Step 1: Apply to the Court

Fill out an Application to Obtain an Order (Form 1) and make three photocopies of it. Application forms and instructions are available free of charge from your local Provincial Court or on-line in PDF format

If you are applying for spousal and/or child support (also called maintenance), you may also need to fill out a Financial Statement providing details of your current financial situation, including assets (what you own) and liabilities (what you owe). The Financial Statement is available from court staff. Make 3 photocopies of your Financial Statement.

Submit the original and 3 copies of your Application and Financial Statement (if required) to the court registry. This is called "filing" your application. There is no fee for filing an application in Provincial Court.

Once your Application is filed, you become the "Applicant" and your former spouse is the "Respondent" - he or she must "respond" to the application you have filed.

At this point, court staff will tell you that both you and your spouse will be required to meet separately with a Family Justice Counsellor to discuss issues related to the Application and options for resolving them (see Step 6). You can schedule this meeting at any time during the application process. You cannot go to court for a First Appearance (see Step 7) until you have met with a Family Justice Counsellor.

Court staff will provide you with a package of information containing:

• an official copy of your completed Application
• a blank Reply form (Form 3)
• a copy of your completed Financial Statement (Form 4), if you filed one, and a blank Financial Statement for the Respondent to complete, if required
• a fact sheet on the Family Justice Registry Project, so the Respondent will know that he or she is now included in the project, and
• two blank Referral Request forms (Form 6), one for you and one for the Respondent. (This form must be signed by a Family Justice Counsellor associated with the Family Justice Registry Project to show that you have had your meeting - see Step 6 - and completed by you after you have used one of the recommended services or decided that you must continue on to court.)

The Reply form (Form 3) has spaces for the Respondent to agree with what you have asked for, to disagree with all or part of what you have asked for, or to file a "counterclaim" - which means the Respondent is going to apply for an order as well. (For example, you apply for sole custody, and your spouse counterclaims for joint custody.)

You are responsible for having the package of information served on the Respondent.

To "serve" a document simply means having the document delivered according to certain rules. First, you cannot do the delivery yourself. Instead, you can either ask an adult friend or hire a professional process server to serve the package of information. If you do not know where your spouse is living now, you can also ask the court to allow you to use another method of service, such as leaving the documents with a relative or placing a newspaper ad.

For more information on serving documents, please see court staff or read the Provincial Court (Family) Rules. The Law Centre web site also includes information on serving documents.

Ask the person who served the package of information on the respondent to fill out and sign an Affidavit of Personal Service (Form 5), then file it with the Family Justice Registry.

This affidavit is a written statement, sworn under oath in front of a person allowed by law to witness affidavits (called a Commissioner), that states the person swearing the affidavit served the Respondent with the required documents.

The affidavit form is available from the Provincial Court.

The Respondent has 30 days to reply to your Application.

If the Respondent files a Reply within 30 days, court staff will send you a copy of the Reply, and any other documents attached to it.

• Respondent agrees
  
  If the Respondent agrees with your Application, you can then ask the court for a consent order (this is an order that both you and your spouse "consent" or agree to), based on what you asked for in your Application. Your Family Justice Counsellor will help you and your spouse prepare the necessary forms (see Step 6). With a consent order, you will most likely not have to appear at a court hearing, and the process will end here.
  
  
• Respondent disagrees/counterclaims
  
  If the Respondent disagrees with your Application, but does not file a counterclaim, you can - once you have met with a Family Justice Counsellor (see Step 6) - ask court staff to schedule a First Appearance (see Step 7) for you. Court staff will mail you a Notice of Hearing, telling you the date, place and time of your First Appearance.
  
  If the Respondent files a counterclaim, court staff will send you a blank Reply form (just like the one you served on the Respondent), and you will then have 30 days to respond to the counterclaim. Once you have filed your Reply, you can ask court staff to schedule a First Appearance (see Step 7). Court staff will mail you a Notice of Hearing, telling you the date, place and time of your First Appearance.

If the Respondent does not file a Reply within 30 days, you can - once you have met with a Family Justice Counsellor (see Step 6) - ask court staff to schedule a First Appearance (see Step 7) for you, without notice to the Respondent. (Please see What if my former spouse does not file a Reply, or is late in filing - are there any consequences? for more information.)

Your meeting with a Family Justice Counsellor can occur at any time during the application process. The meeting will last about 45 minutes.

During the meeting, the Family Justice Counsellor will tell you about various services that may be able to help you deal with your separation issues outside the court process, including the Parenting After Separation Program and mediation. (Parenting After Separation is required in some larger communities - specifically Burnaby, New Westminster, Surrey, Vancouver, Kelowna, Prince George, Abbotsford, Victoria, Kamloops and Nanaimo - before you can go to court to obtain a custody, guardianship, access or child support order. Please see our Parenting After Separation section for more information.)

After you meet with the Family Justice Counsellor, it is up to you to decide which service or services (if any) you want to attend. Once you have gone through Parenting After Separation, mediation or other service - or you have decided that court is your best option - you will need to fill out and file the Referral Request form (Form 6) at the Family Justice Registry.

This form will tell court staff either that you have been able to resolve your issues, or that you want to have your case referred to a judge. If you decide you must go to court, court staff will schedule a First Appearance for you.

A First Appearance is a court hearing, where the judge will look at what you have applied for and what the Respondent has stated in his or her Reply (if submitted).

Your First Appearance may be the first and last time you appear in court, or it may be the beginning of a longer process. The judge will decide what needs to happen next based on the particular circumstances of your case.

You may represent yourself at the First Appearance, or have a lawyer represent you.