Separation and divorce questions

If you don’t know where the other person is, you can apply to the court for an order permitting you to let the other person know about the divorce by alternative (substitutional) service. For example, you can ask that the court consider the documents as served if you:

• send them to the other person by email, text, or direct message through a private social media platform, like Facebook Messenger,
• give the Notice of Family Claim to someone the other person knows well, or
• post a classified ad in a local newspaper.

See Arrange for alternative (substitutional) service on the Family Law in BC website to learn more about this.
 

The BC Family Law Act defines guardians as the people responsible for:
caring for and bringing up a child, and making decisions about that child.

When parents live together, they’re both guardians of their children, even if they’re not married. This means they share responsibility for their children’s care and upbringing. If the children’s parents stop living together, both of them are still the children’s guardians. 

Anyone who isn’t a child’s guardian can apply to the court to become one, including a parent who isn’t a guardian or anyone else who is a relative (such as a grandparent) or not a relative.

To apply for guardianship, you need to file:

• an application to get a family order in either Provincial or Supreme Court, and
• a special guardianship affidavit.

See the Family Law in BC website (FLWS) page How can you become a child’s guardian, and the resource How to Become a Child’s Guardian for links to the step-by-step guides on the FLWS website that you can use to help you with the application process. Lawyer JP Boyd also has helpful information about becoming a guardian in his Clicklaw Wikibook, JP Boyd on Family Law.

These resources also contain information about the Extended Family Program, which may be a better option for people who want to temporarily look after relatives’ or friends’ child because the Ministry of Children and Family Development is involved with the family.

If you have an order or agreement to pay child or spousal support, you’re expected to pay the support amount until it’s changed or cancelled. This is because every child in BC has a right to child support under the Federal Child Support Guidelines. A parent can’t refuse to pay child support simply because they don’t like the other parent, don’t approve of how the other parent will use the money, or aren’t receiving parenting time or contact. 

Out of court options

If you are unable to pay the full amount of support (say because of changes to your employment or financial situation), pay whatever you can and see if you can negotiate a change to the amount with the other person’s agreement. Even if the change to your financial situation is temporary, it’s important that you don’t fall behind in your payments. 

If you want help with talking to, or negotiating with, the other person to make changes to your order or agreement without going to court, reach out to a family justice counsellor, mediator, lawyer, or someone at a Justice Access Centre. They can help you work out what’s fair. 

Note that there’s also the Child Support Recalculation Service, a free program that reviews Provincial (Family) Court child support orders and filed written agreements. It recalculates (works out again) the amount of child support a paying parent (the parent who pays support) has to pay every year based on updated income information received or requested from them. The amount of support can be increased or reduced. The program is available in limited circumstances.

Make a court application

If the other person doesn’t agree to changing your support payment amount, you can make a court application and ask the court to change or set aside (replace all or part of) your order or filed agreement. The courts can choose to change the amount you pay if the existing arrangement is unfair or is causing you financial hardship. 

To change a child or spousal support filed agreement or order, make an application through your local Provincial or Supreme Court registry. You can use the Family Law in BC’s step-by-step guide for changing an order or agreement for help.

It’s a good idea to get legal help before you try change an order or agreement. See the Family Law in BC web page If you’re struggling to pay support for more information. Also helpful is lawyer JP Boyd’s Changing family law order, awards, and agreements involving child support page in his Clicklaw wikibook, JP Boyd on Family Law.

Paying (or not paying) child support doesn’t affect a person’s parenting time or contact with their children. If the parent falls behind or stops paying support, the other parent can’t stop them from seeing the children because of that.

Child support basics

When parents separate (or have a child together outside of a relationship), one parent has to give the other parent money to help support the children. This money is called child support. Every child in BC has a right to be supported by both parents if:

• they’re under 19, or
• they’re 19 or over, but can’t take care of themselves because of illness, disability, or another reason, such as going to school full-time

A parent can’t refuse to pay child support simply because they don’t like the other parent, don’t approve of how the other parent will use the money, or aren’t receiving parenting time or contact. Basically, the parent the children live with most of the time is entitled to get child support from the other parent. If the children spend equal (or almost equal) time with both parents, the person with the higher income usually has to pay child support.

Calculating child support

To calculate how much child support you should receive, use the federal Child Support Table Look-up website. The amount is based on the Federal Child Support Guidelines. The federal government has already set the amount of child support to be paid based on the number of children you and the other parent have together and a payor’s gross annual income. 

Make a support agreement without going to court

Many people come to an agreement about child support without having to go to court. They can then file their agreement with the court. If the agreement is filed with the court, it can be enforced. That means it’s treated in the same way as a court order. The agreement can be changed if the situation changes for either person.
If you want to make a support agreement without going to court, a family justice counsellor, child support officer, mediator, lawyer, or someone at a Justice Access Centre can help you work out what’s fair.

Resources to help you

Making an agreement after you separate and Who can help you reach an agreement? both have lots of useful information about making agreements without going to court. 

And Write your own separation agreement can help you write a legally binding separation agreement, which includes a child support section.

If you and the other person can’t come to an agreement, one of you can apply to the court for an order for child support. See Final and interim court orders. (That page has links to the Family Law in BC website’s step-by-step guides on getting court orders in Provincial Court and Supreme Court.)

See the Family Law in BC website’s Child support page and the Child support page on Dial-A-Law by People’s Law School for more information. 

If you were involved in abusive behaviour or there was a violent incident:

• a criminal court can make a no contact order against you, or
• a family court can put no contact conditions in a family law protection order against you. 

These court orders make it illegal for you to contact the other person either directly or indirectly, meaning, for example:

• no phone calls 
• no written messages (such as texts, emails, direct or indirect messages or comments on social media)
• no messages sent through other people
• no visits to their home, where they work, place of worship, school, or anywhere else they might be
• no physical gestures if you run into them (for example, on the street)

If you breach (disobey) the conditions of any no contact order, you could be charged with a criminal offence and could be fined or go to jail. This is true even if the other person contacted you first or agreed to it.

If you breach (disobey) the conditions of any no contact order, you could be charged with a criminal offence and could be fined or go to jail. This is true even if the other person contacted you first or agreed to it.

No. If you have any kind of no contact order, you can be charged with a criminal offence if you try to make contact. This is true even if both of you want to meet. You must apply to a judge in either criminal court or family court to change the order before you can contact the other person.

You can ask the court that made the order to vary it. In criminal court, Crown counsel must agree to the change and you must appear before the judge to explain why. In family court, the other person has to agree as well. If they don’t agree, it will be up to the judge to decide. In either court, the judge will have to agree that the other person (and if it’s your partner, any of your or your partner’s children) are no longer at risk of harm from you.

Talk to your lawyer, or duty counsel or registry staff at the courthouse about how to apply to court to change the order.

Yes, your partner has that right if there’s a no contact order in place with the condition that you not go to your home. The police or a justice of the peace may order you to have no contact with your partner or to not go to your home when you’re released. 

Talk to your lawyer or duty counsel at the courthouse about how to apply to court for an order that gives you the legal right to enter the home.

For more information, see When You’re Told to Have ​“No Contact”.

Don’t contact the other person directly or through another person. You could be charged with breaking the no contact order.

You can ask the court for an order to get your things. Talk to your lawyer, duty counsel at the courthouse, your bail supervisor or probation officer, a Native Courtworker, or a family justice counsellor about how to do that.

When you’re charged with causing fear to, endangering, assaulting, or threatening your partner in front of your children or in a way that puts your children at risk, the court may also order you to have no contact with your children.

Try to get the court not to make that order or to allow some contact with them such as with a third party. You can ask the court instead to order that you have ​“no contact or parenting time with the children unless ordered by a family court.” This would let you arrange with family court to spend time with your children. You wouldn’t have to change the no contact order. The process to change the no contact order in criminal court can be difficult and take a long time.

You’ll have to prove to a judge that things have changed in your life that make it reasonable to change the order. The judge will look at what’s in the children’s best interests.

For help to change an order, talk to family duty counsel at the courthouse or find out if you qualify for the Family LawLINE phone service (phone numbers below). A family justice counsellor may also be able to tell you how to apply to the court to have the order changed.

• For online help with the process to change an order, see the Family Law in BC website: