Family cases from Penticton run through a single building: the Penticton Law Courts at 100 Main Street, which the Province lists as housing both the Provincial Court and the Supreme Court. Which side of the building your case belongs on depends on what you need decided.
| You need | Court | Why |
|---|
| A divorce order | Supreme Court | Only the Supreme Court can grant a divorce |
| Division of a house, savings, a business or a pension | Supreme Court | The Provincial Court’s family rules exclude property and pension division, except for a companion animal |
| Parenting arrangements, contact, child or spousal support, a protection order | Either court | Both have jurisdiction under the Family Law Act |
When parenting and support are the only issues, the Provincial Court is available, and in Penticton it runs a structured early resolution process. If you also need a divorce or property divided, you will be in the Supreme Court for those, and it can be simpler to deal with everything there. Which route suits your case is one of the first things we look at.
Starting in the Provincial Court: what Penticton requires first
Penticton is an Early Resolution Registry under the Provincial Court Family Rules. Before you can file an application about a family law matter there, Rule 10 requires you to:
- File a Notice to Resolve a Family Law Matter (Form 1) and give a copy to each other party
- Take part in a needs assessment with a Family Justice Counsellor
- Complete a parenting education program
- Take part in at least one consensual dispute resolution session, such as mediation
The other party has to do the same before filing a reply (Rule 11). Some steps can be waived: a needs assessor can exempt a person from parenting education, for example where all the children are 19 or older or where the person completed the program in the past two years (Rule 17), and a needs assessor can decide that a dispute resolution session is not appropriate or cannot be accessed (Rule 18).
The steps do not stand in the way of urgent protection. Under Rules 12 and 14, an application only for a protection order, a priority parenting matter (such as an urgent decision about where a child will live or travel), a relocation order, a consent order or a case management order can go ahead without them.
Which registry
Rule 7 points a new case to the registry closest to where the child lives most of the time, or, if no child is involved, closest to the home of the person who files first. For a child who lives in Penticton, the Main Street registry is the obvious candidate. Families living further out should apply the rule to their own address and confirm with the registry before filing. Princeton has its own Provincial Court registry, and the Province lists Penticton as its filing location.
If you are the one served
Receiving a Notice to Resolve, or later an application, starts your own obligations. Before you can file a reply in an early resolution registry, you must complete the needs assessment, the parenting education program and a dispute resolution session (Rule 11). A party who receives a notice to resolve and does not do these things may not take part in the case unless the court orders otherwise (Rule 22). Once an application is served, a reply is due within 30 days. If any of those dates is close, call us early rather than late.
The Penticton Family Justice Centre
The Family Justice Centre that runs the early resolution services for the Penticton and Princeton registries is in the courthouse itself, at 100 Main Street. Its services are free: Family Justice Counsellors, who are accredited mediators, help with parenting arrangements, guardianship, contact, child and spousal support and the division of a companion animal. The Centre is not open for drop-ins, so call to book an appointment; it also offers its services by phone and video. Hours change, so check the Province’s page for the Centre before you go.
Using the Centre and having a lawyer are not alternatives. The counsellors cannot give legal advice to either of you, and they can refer you elsewhere for it. We prepare clients for the needs assessment and for mediation, review any agreement before it is signed, and step in at court when early resolution does not settle things. If mediation is the right fit for you outside the court process, see our family mediation lawyers.
In the Supreme Court: divorce and dividing property
The divorce itself
The usual ground is that the spouses have lived separate and apart for at least one year, and they must be separated when the proceeding is started (section 8). A divorce takes effect on the 31st day after the judgment, unless the court orders an earlier date in special circumstances and the spouses agree not to appeal; a pending appeal can also delay it (section 12). Our divorce lawyers page explains the process, and our guide to filing for divorce in BC lists the documents.
A divorce order is sometimes necessary, but it is not always the first thing to sort out. Financial security and arrangements for the children tend to press harder, and we deal with those first.
Property brought into the relationship
Property a spouse owned before the relationship began, or received by inheritance or as a gift from a third party, is excluded (section 85), and the spouse claiming the exclusion has to prove it. The exclusion has a limit: any increase in the value of excluded property during the relationship is family property and is shared (section 84(2)(g)). A house one partner owned before moving in together can therefore be partly shared. The court can also divide unequally where an equal split would be significantly unfair (section 95). Our property division lawyers page has more detail.
The two-year limit
A married spouse must start a claim to divide property or for spousal support within two years after the divorce order (or a nullity order); a former unmarried spouse has two years from the date of separation (Family Law Act, section 198(2)). The clock is suspended while both people are engaged in family dispute resolution with a family dispute resolution professional, or in a prescribed process (section 198(5)). Do not rely on informal talks to stop it.
Disclosure comes first
Every family law dispute in BC runs on the same duty: each party must give the other “full and true information” so that it can be resolved (Family Law Act, section 5). In practice that means tax returns and notices of assessment, pay records, statements for bank, investment and pension accounts, mortgage and loan balances, and records for any business or rental property. An agreement reached without proper disclosure is open to challenge later, so it is worth gathering these papers before the first meeting, not after.
Parenting and moving
Where a written agreement or order about parenting arrangements or contact is in place, a guardian planning a move that could significantly affect the child’s relationship with a guardian or another important person, whether to Kelowna or to the coast, must give the other guardians and anyone with contact at least 60 days’ written notice of the date and the new location (Family Law Act, sections 65 and 66). The court can waive notice where giving it would risk family violence or where there is no ongoing relationship with the other guardian. A relocation dispute has its own rules, so get advice before you commit to a move.
