How Do I Start a Family Law Action in the Supreme Court?

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The court forms to start your claim[edit]

Most of the time you'll need to fill out a form called a Notice of Family Claim in Form F3. (If your spouse and you are working together on a joint application process, you’ll be completing and filing a Notice of Joint Family Claim in Form F1.)

In less-common and specific circumstances, a family law case is started with a Petition, Form F73. Petitions are used when someone is starting an adoption proceedings, seeking a name change under the Names Act, seeking permission to apply for parenting orders in an Divorce Act proceeding when they are not actually a spouse, asking for the return of a child under the Hague Convention on child abduction, and other situations covered by Supreme Court Family Rule 3-1.

And in some specific circumstances a family law case is started by requisition. A common example of a family law case started by requisition is when you need to file a family law agreement under the Family Law Act. This would be if you need to start a family law case to enforce your separation agreement, or to change your separation agreement, and there wasn’t a family law proceeding already started. To do this, you would prepare a Requisition in Form F17.1 to file your family law agreement under the Family Law Act, which will commence a new action. A requisition is also used for filing an arbitration award, which requires the Requisition in Form 17.3.

But as you can see, petitions and requisitions are for pretty specific situations. As a new claim is most commonly commenced by filing a Notice of Family Claim in Form F3, this section primarily focuses on this process.

Form F3 is available online. Legal Aid BC’s Family Law website links to the various forms that are part of the BC Supreme Court Family Rules. The court will not provide you with a guide to filling this form out, so you must be as precise and accurate as possible.

Completing forms[edit]

There are a lot of free online resources that can help you complete these forms, and Clicklaw (www.clicklaw.bc.ca) is a great place to start. But if you have any questions, you should really see a lawyer, or if that’s not possible for financial reasons, try reaching out to family duty counsel.

The Notice of Family Claim sets out the basic information about who you are, who the other side is, and describes the sorts of claims you are making.

You have to attach additional schedules to your Notice of Family Claim depending on the orders you are asking for. The schedules require you to provide more detailed information about your marriage, your children, your property and debts, and so forth.

Other forms you might need[edit]

If you are married and you are asking that the court make an order for your divorce, you must file the original copy of your marriage certificate. (This is the government document, not the certificate you received from the person who married you.)

If your claim involves the family home or other property, you may also want to prepare a Certificate of Pending Litigation (called a CPL). (More information about CPLs is available in the chapter Protecting Property and Debt in Family Law Matters.)

If your claim involves support, property, or debt, you'll also wind up filling out a Financial Statement in Form F8. This isn't due until later on in the court proceeding, but you can and should get started now.

If your claim involves guardianship of a child and you are not already a guardian, you'll need to fill out a special affidavit in Form F101. You don't have to file this form right away when you're starting a court proceeding, but the form can take some time to fill out and you will need to order records checks from the police and the Ministry of Children and Family Development. You might as well get started on this now.

Filing your materials[edit]

When you've finished filling out your Notice of Family Claim, make three complete copies and take everything, including your marriage certificate and your CPL (if needed), to the courthouse.

If you are seeking a divorce, you will also be required to fill out a Registration of Divorce Proceeding form. This form must be completed using the online form, printed off (do not complete it by hand), and submitted to the court registry with your Notice of Family Claim. The court staff will send this document off to the Central Registry of Divorce Proceedings in Ottawa.

It will cost $200 for you to file your Notice of Family Claim ($210 if you are asking for an order for divorce as part of the Notice of Family Claim), plus another fee to file your CPL, if you need one.

The court will give your action a file number, and stamp all four copies of your materials with the seal of the court, a date stamp, and the file number of your action. If you have filed a CPL, the court will stamp that too. Note that you must also file your CPL at the Land Title and Survey Authority for it to take effect; they will charge you another fee.

What happens next?[edit]

Once you've filed your Notice of Family Claim, you must arrange to have it served on the other side. You cannot serve the other person yourself, you must get someone else to do that for you, whether that person is a professional process server or a helpful friend. The person who serves the Notice of Family Claim should swear an Affidavit of Personal Service in Form F15. This affidavit gives the courts the guarantee that your spouse has been served and that they know a family case has been started.

Response and counterclaim[edit]

After the other person has been served, they will have 30 days to file a Response to Family Claim in Form F4. The other side may also file a form called a Counterclaim in Form F5. If this happens, the other side is making a claim of their own against you, and you will need to prepare a Response to Counterclaim in Form F6.

Once all of those forms are filed and served (collectively, these forms are called pleadings), it's safe to say the family law case has begun. There may be many steps that follow, up to and including trial, but the family law action is now an open file with the courts. I will describe one more step, however.

The Judicial Case Conference[edit]

This step is worth noting because it is practically mandatory to participate in a Judicial Case Conference (or JCC) before further steps in your family law case can be taken. When you have received the other person's Response to Family Claim, you will have to set up a JCC. The form to do this is called a Notice of Judicial Case Conference in Form F19, and the registry will have it on hand.

More information about JCCs and the rules that govern them is available in the Online Help Guide produced by the Justice Education Society. But essentially, a JCC is an informal hearing before a judge or associate judge intended to review the issues between the parties, and see what issues can be agreed on and what can't be. The judge or associate judge will also canvass different ways of settling the action. It's not uncommon for entire family law disputes to resolve at one of these conferences.

It can be very important to have a JCC as soon as possible, as most applications for interim orders can't be made until a JCC happens. There are some exceptions to this rule:

  • if you are making an application for a financial restraining order against your spouse,
  • if the other side consents to the order you want, or
  • if there is an emergency and you have to make your application without notice to the other side.


This information applies to British Columbia, Canada. Last reviewed for legal accuracy by Mark Norton and Stephanie Pesth, September 14, 2023.



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