Introduction
About this guide
This guide tells you how to apply for a court order that lets you begin or respond to an application without paying court fees. This court order is called an order to waive fees.
This guide includes:
- a list of steps explaining how to apply for an order to waive fees,
- links to the blank forms you'll need, and
- information about what will happen when you go to court.
- filing documents,
- swearing affidavits,
- searching some court records,
- photocopying, and
- issuing certain documents (for example, a certificate of judgment).
There are no fees in Provincial Court.
Do you need to have fees waived?
Before you begin this application, make sure you really need an order to waive fees. For some procedures, the court filing fees may be minimal. For example, the fee for filing a response is $25.
To find out if you need to pay a fee to the court registry for filing a document, see Appendix C of the Supreme Court Family Rules for a list of all court fees or call your local court registry.
Can you get an order to waive fees?
There are two situations in which you can get an order to waive fees:
- If you receive benefits under the Employment and Assistance Act or the Employment and Assistance for Persons with Disabilities Act; or
- If you can't afford to pay fees without facing undue hardship.
What is undue hardship?
In most areas of family law, "undue" means excessive, exceptional, or disproportionate.
Before the court will make an order waiving court fees, the judge or master will also consider whether the claim or response you want to file is reasonable or whether it's frivolous, vexatious, or an abuse of the court process.
To decide this, the judge or master must see a copy of the document(s) you want to file without paying fees. Usually this includes one or more of the following:
- a Notice of Family Claim (Form F3),
- a Response to Family Claim (Form F4),
- a Counterclaim (Form F5), or
- a Notice of Application (Form F31) with supporting affidavits.
What does an order to waive fees cover?
If you have an order to waive fees. you do not have to pay the fees listed in Appendix C of the Supreme Court Family Rules.
The judge or master can order that you don't have to pay court fees:
- for the whole case (this will cover filing, hearing, and other fees listed in Schedule C);
- for certain steps of the case (for example, to file a particular document);
- for a certain period of time; or
- for any part of the case.
If your financial circumstances change, the judge or master can revoke an order to waive fees. If that happens, you'll have to pay filing fees for any new documents that need to be filed or new hearing fees.So, unless an order is made to revoke your order to waive fees or the order is limited in some way, you won't need to apply to court again to avoid paying filing fees every time you have to file a new document.
Get legal help
It's a good idea to get some legal help before you begin a guide. If you can't afford a lawyer, there are other ways to get legal help, including:
You can also get help to fill out your forms from Justice Access Centres telephone services.