How Do I Make an Interim Application in a Family Law Matter in the Supreme Court?

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What is an interim application?[edit]

An interim application, in the context of family law cases in the BC Supreme Court, refers to a temporary court order (as opposed to a final order) that is meant to address immediate or urgent issues that cannot wait until the end of the trial or final resolution of the case. Interim applications are made after the family law proceeding has commenced, but before a final order is made or a settlement is reached.

Other terms you might encounter that mean basically the same thing as interim application are:

  • application for interim relief
  • application for a temporary order
  • interlocutory application
  • chambers application

Interim applications are quite common in Supreme Court proceedings, and more common than trials. If you need child support payments now, you can't wait a year or more for a trial just to get an order. You can ask a judge or associate judge for an interim child support order while you wait for the final judgement to be made.

While interim applications are often for temporary orders (i.e. an order that isn't intended to cover a long period of time), not all orders requested through interim applications are temporary. Ones that are not temporary are usually urgent in some way. They can be used to force the other side to do something, like share important documents, so that the family law matter can move along. If the other person is not giving you the financial disclosure they are supposed to, you can make a chambers application for an interim order for disclosure. There is nothing temporary about an order for disclosure (once the other party is forced to disclose their bank statements, the disclosure is permanent), but there would have been some urgency (you can’t continue with the litigation if someone is stalling and not disclosing important information), which is why the interim application was justified.

Why make an interim application?[edit]

People often make interim applications to get orders about:

  • Interim parenting arrangements: very common when parents can’t agree on where children should live, who should exercise parental responsibilities, etc., until a final decision is made.
  • Interim child or spousal support: interim applications for support are common to arrange temporary financial assistance to a spouse or child during the litigation process.
  • Interim contact: an application to establish when and how someone who is not a guardian will spend time with the children.
  • Interim guardianship: common where a relative seeks interim guardianship of children because parents are not able to provide for the child.
  • Interim property protection: interim applications can be used to prevent the disposal or dissipation of family assets before a trial.
  • Interim exclusive occupation: an application to decide who will temporarily have the right to live in the family home.
  • Interim protection orders: an application for orders to protect one person from another family member, such as in cases of family violence.
  • Interim conduct orders: an application to regulate how the parties may communicate with each other or the children, or manage substance use during the litigation.

When to make an interim application[edit]

In most BC Supreme Court family law cases, you need to wait until a judicial case conference (JCC) has been heard, although Rule 7-1 of the Supreme Court Family Rules has a list of exceptions to this general rule.

In a genuine emergency, you can make an application any time after a Notice of Family Claim in Form F3 has been filed, with no notice or very little notice given to the other side.

Once a JCC has been held, however, applications can be brought at any time.

An update to Supreme Court Family Rules in May 2023 now requires that before you ask a judge to make an order for child support, spousal support, or parenting orders (called corollary relief in the Divorce Act), you will need to file Statement of Information for Corollary Relief Proceedings in Form 102. This is only applicable where the Divorce Act is involved, which means if your relationship was common-law this would not apply to your proceeding. Form 102 provides the court with a basic understanding of whether family violence is a factor, and asks if any protection orders, child protection issues, or criminal charges are involved. You need to update and re-file the form if any of your answers change in the future before you ask for any additional orders for support or parenting.

How to start the application process[edit]

You will want to familiarize yourself with the specific rules from the BC Supreme Court Family Rules that address applications, and these are mentioned below.

The first two court forms you'll need are:

  • Notice of Application in Form F31
  • Affidavit in Form F30

The forms are available online. See Legal Aid BC's Family Law website's online list of forms.

The Notice of Application in Form F31 tells the court and the other side:

  • when you want the application heard,
  • the orders that you want the court to make,
  • the basic facts supporting your application,
  • a summary of your argument in support of your application,
  • the rules, acts, or regulations that give the court authority to make the orders you're asking for, and
  • the affidavits, expert reports, or other evidence you'll rely on when you argue the application.

The affidavit explains who you are, the orders you want the court to make, and why you want the court to make those orders. When you swear or affirm your affidavit under oath in front of a lawyer or notary, the information you put in the affidavit becomes evidence – your written testimony. Your affidavit contains the evidence you will be relying on in support of your application.

When you're ready to go, you must file your Notice of Application and affidavit in court and serve a copy of the filed documents on the other side, the application respondent, by ordinary service. It costs $80 to file an application, unless you have an order to waive fees (see How Do I Waive Filing Fees in the Supreme Court?).

Ordinary service is accomplished by mailing the documents to the other side's address for service, by faxing them to a fax number for service, or by emailing them to an email address for service.

Serving and receiving service by email[edit]

Starting September 1, 2023, all parties to a BC Supreme Court action, whether represented by a lawyer or not, must provide an email as well as a mailing address to allow ordinary service of materials. The form for updating a party’s address for service is the Notice of Address for Service in Form F10. You should ensure you have included an email as your address for service in the Form F31 Notice of Application if you have not already included it in a previous notice, and you can insist that the other side (the application respondent) file their Notice of Address for Service in Form F10 with an email address if they have not yet agreed to receive materials by email.

Timeline to serve your application on the other party[edit]

You must serve your materials on the application respondent, by sending them to the postal or email address they have identified for receiving service, at least eight business days before the hearing date.

When counting days, skip statutory holidays and any days the court is closed for judges' conferences. You should check the court calendar links on the Supreme Court’s main scheduling webpage to make sure you know when the court will not be open.

Counting days example: Say you want to have your court application heard on Monday, November 18, 2024. How do you count backwards to know when the 8-day deadline is?

  • count backward from the day you want to have the application heard and think of Monday, November 18 is day zero
  • skip Sunday the 17th and Saturday the 16th because those are weekend days
  • Friday, the 15th would be day #1 in the 8-day count
  • Thursday the 14th is day #2
  • Wednesday the 13th is day #3
  • Tuesday the 12th is day #4
  • Monday the 11th is a statutory holiday (Remembrance Day), so skip it
  • Sunday the 10th and Saturday the 9th are weekend days, so skip them
  • Friday the 8th is day #5
  • Thursday the 7th is day #6
  • Wednesday the 6th is day #7
  • Tuesday the 5th is day #8

To hear an application on Monday, November 18, 2024 you need to serve materials no later than 4:00 pm on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. However...

The court calendar shows a three day judges' conference scheduled from Wednesday to Friday (November 13-15, 2024). In this case:

  • count backward from the day you want to have the application heard and think of Monday, November 18 is day zero
  • skip Sunday the 17th and Saturday the 16th because those are weekend days
  • you cannot count those three days (Wednesday the 13th, Thursday the 14th, and Friday the 15th)
  • Tuesday the 12th would actually be day #1 in the 8-day count
  • Monday the 11th is a statutory holiday, so skip it
  • Sunday the 10th and Saturday the 9th are weekend days, so skip them
  • Friday the 8th is day #2
  • Thursday the 7th is day #3
  • Wednesday the 6th is day #4
  • Tuesday the 5th is day #5
  • Monday the 4th is day #6
  • Sunday the 3rd and Saturday the 2nd are weekends, so skip them
  • Friday the 1st is day #7, and
  • Thursday, October 31 is day #8

If you wanted to hear an application on Monday, November 18, 2024 you actually need to serve materials a full 18 days prior, given that 10 days (in this somewhat extreme example) do not count. Serve materials no later than 4:00 pm on Thursday, October 31, 2024.

The application respondent's response[edit]

In most cases, the application respondent will have five business days to respond to your application by filing an Application Response in Form F32 and any affidavits that the application respondent intends to use. The application response tells the court and you:

  • the orders that the application respondent agrees to,
  • the orders that the application respondent intends to oppose,
  • the orders that the application respondent might agree to if certain conditions are met,
  • the basic facts which oppose the applicant's version of the facts,
  • a summary of the application respondent's argument against the application,
  • a summary of any legal rules, statutes or court cases that contradict the applicant’s proposed legal basis, and
  • the affidavits the application respondent will be relying on when the application is argued.

What if they do not respond?[edit]

Although Rule 10-6, the rule that explains how interim applications are brought, says that someone who doesn't file an application response isn't entitled to notice of when the application will be heard, do not expect that the court will simply let your application go ahead in default of an application response. The court will likely want to give the other side every chance to defend against your application.

Instead, if the other party does not file an application response and does not show up on the date you have set for the hearing, you can ask the judge for an order that the application respondent must appear at another date in 2-4 weeks’ time and that the order be peremptory upon the application respondent. This will make it easier for the judge who hears you on your next hearing date to make a default order if the application respondent still has not responded and does not appear.

Your reply to the application respondent's reply[edit]

If you wish to reply to something the application respondent has said in their affidavit, you can make a new affidavit of your own. You must deliver this affidavit to the application respondent by 4:00pm on the business day that is one full business day before the hearing.

Reply affidavits are intended to address only new points raised by the application respondent’s affidavit or to explain updates on issues that have developed since you filed your first affidavit, such as medical treatment for a child or new, relevant information you have received, such as a tax assessment or invoice. Try to avoid re-explaining your position on any points you wrote about in your first affidavit.

Application records[edit]

You must prepare an application record for the hearing of your application. The application record is traditionally a three-ring binder that contains all of the application materials, with an index noting the material included at numbered tabs, with the material separated by numbered tabs corresponding to the index. The application record is for the benefit of the judge or associate judge hearing your application, so prepare it as neatly and carefully as you can; the judge will appreciate the effort. It is often easiest to make a second copy of all the materials for yourself at the same time you are preparing the court’s copy of the application record.

Application records will usually contain the following documents in the following order:

  1. an index,
  2. your Notice of Application in Form F31 at tab 1,
  3. the Application Response in Form F32 at tab 2,
  4. your affidavits in order of the dates they were filed (including your Financial Statement in Form F8, which counts as an affidavit),
  5. the application respondent's affidavits,
  6. any new affidavit you have prepared in reply to the application respondent's affidavits, and
  7. any existing agreements or court orders that are relevant to the orders you are asking for.

You must file your application record by 4:00pm on the business day that is one full business day before the hearing. If your hearing is on Thursday, file it before 4:00pm on Tuesday. Make sure you provide a copy of your index to the application respondent at the same time. The other side is responsible for preparing their own copy of the application record for them to use at the hearing (providing them the index allows them to know what it contains).

The Justice Education Society's Online Help Guide for BC Supreme Court Family Law has a helpful webpage with more information about application records, and BC Legal Aid's Family Law website has an Application Record Index listed under its webpage with BC Supreme Court forms.

Electronic application records: Note that the BC Supreme Court has been experimenting with application records in electronic (PDF) format, instead of printed out pages clipped into three-ring binders, for hearings of 30 minutes of less, in certain courts only, and only before a associate judge (i.e. not a judge). As of writing, this pilot project had expanded quickly to most registries across the province, but was not yet mandatory for self-represented litigants. That said, maybe you prefer to deal with PDFs rather than three-ring binders. And perhaps as you read this the pilot project will have expanded to more registry locations or become expected of all participants. See the BC Supreme Court website for more information about the Associate Judges Chambers Pilot Project.

The rules[edit]

The following Supreme Court Family Rules are of particular relevance:

  • Rule 6-1(1)-(1.1): Both email and postal address for service required
  • Rule 6-2: How to serve documents by ordinary service
  • Rule 7-1: The JCC rules
  • Rule 10-4: The rule about affidavits
  • Rule 10-5: Directions for bringing interim applications
  • Rule 10-6: The usual application procedure, including what notices of application must include, when things need to be served, what the application record contains, etc.

For more information[edit]

You can find helpful information from the Legal Aid BC's Family Law website's guide on "What Happens in a Supreme Court Chambers Hearing?" and Justice Education Society's Online Help Guide for Supreme Court Family Law Chambers Applications. The Canadian Judicial Council has also created a series of guides for self-represented litigants, including a Family Law Handbook with significant detail about family law matters in Canadian courts. The BC Supreme Court website also has an information page for self-represented litigants, and a Chambers Application Package that is helpful.


This information applies to British Columbia, Canada. Last reviewed for legal accuracy by Shannon Beebe, September 24, 2023.


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