In order to start court proceedings, you must first determine which court is preferred. In B.C. we have two courts that may be used to commence court proceedings to resolve outstanding relationship issues. The first is the Supreme Court of British Columbia and the second is the Provincial Court of British Columbia.

Which court should I choose?

Provincial Court

The Provincial Court is a lower court and is therefore limited in the type of issues the court can deal with. Some of these issues include, guardianship, parenting responsibilities, parenting time, contact with a child, child support and spousal support. If your issues are one of these, you may consider the Provincial Court as an option to deal with your case.

Some of the issues that the Provincial Court can not deal with involve, divorce orders, property division and pension division.

Some of the benefits of using the Provincial Court instead of the Supreme Court is that the Provincial Court process is less formal, no filing fees for family cases, the court forms are easier for non-lawyers to complete, has fewer and more flexible rules. As a result, Provincial Court has more unrepresented parties.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has the jurisdiction to resolve all legal issues relating to the breakdown of your relationship. These include divorce, division of property, parenting etc. This is an advantage in that you would only be required to file in one court to resolve all outstanding issues resulting from the breakdown of your relationship.

The difficulty with Supreme Court is that the court process is more formal and complicated than Provincial Court. It is more difficult to represent yourself in Supreme Court. As a result, more parties are represented by lawyers. Supreme Court also charges filing fees for filing family cases.

Starting an Action in Provincial Court

You can start a case in Provincial Court by completing an Application to Obtain an Order and completing a Financial statement. A Financial statement must be completed if there is a claim for support.

Starting an Action in Supreme Court

To start an action in the Supreme Court, you need to complete and file a Notice of Family Claim or in certain circumstances, a Petition to the court. You may also be required to file a Form 8 Financial Statement if you are claiming support or property division.

 

Should you have any questions about your separation and how you should proceed, please give us a call at 604-449-7779 and we would be honoured to be of assistance.