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What does "serving a document" mean?

Sometimes a legal process will require that documents be served. This means that you must provide the document(s) to the other party or parties in your case. There are two ways that you can serve court documents in a Provincial Court family case: by "personal service" or by "delivering" it (via mail or fax).

What's the difference between personal service and delivery?

• Personal service means that someone must personally hand the document to the individual who needs to receive it. Some Provincial Court documents must be served by someone other than yourself (who's at least 19 years old). Other Provincial Court documents may be served either by you or by someone else.
• Most Provincial Court documents can simply be delivered (sent by mail or fax) to the other party at their "address for service," the address they provided on their court documents. You can serve a document by fax if a fax number was included in the address for service.

Note: If you need to serve a document on a person who's represented by a lawyer, you can choose to leave it at the lawyer's office.

Does the document need to be served by personal service or just delivered?

The Provincial Court Rules set out whether a document must be personally served (and by whom) or delivered by mail or fax. Most Provincial Court documents can be mailed or faxed.

To find out how you must serve a specific document, check the procedure for your situation in the relevant self-help guide or contact family duty counsel and ask.

This following chart shows what the rules are for the most common documents in a family case:

Document	Type of service
Application for an Order	Personal service by someone other than the applicant, who's at least 19 years old
Application to Change or Cancel an Order	Personal service by someone other than the applicant, who's at least 19 years old
Response	Court clerk serves
Notice of First Appearance	Court clerk serves

 

Once you know how you're going to serve the document, select the correct instructions below.