Receive the Certificate of Service or sworn affidavit
The process server serves the documents
The process server must then serve the documents, carefully following the steps in either
- "How to personally serve documents for a Supreme Court of British Columbia (Canada) family law process," or
- "How to personally serve documents for a Provincial Court of British Columbia (Canada) family law process."
Receive a Certificate of Service or an Affidavit of Personal Service
If you hired a process server, they'll now provide you with a Certificate of Service or a sworn Affidavit of Personal Service. If a friend or relative is your process server, they should have filled out the certificate or affidavit and sworn the affidavit.
The server will have to send the certificate or affidavit to you. You can then use the document to prove to the court that the documents were served on the other party.
For a Supreme Court document, if copies of the documents that were served aren't attached, properly marked, and properly signed, the document won't be accepted by the court and you'll have to have the documents served again. For a Provincial Court document, if the person who was served acknowledges in writing that they received the documents, the court will consider the person was served even if the certificate or affidavit of service wasn’t completed properly. Be sure to keep the completed Certificate of Service or completed and sworn Affidavit of Personal Service with your files.
Affidavits must be sworn by a commissioner for taking affidavits. To find out who's a commissioner or who can act as one, see Who can swear an affidavit?
You've now gone through all the steps required to serve documents by personal service outside BC. Thank you for using our step-by-step guide.