3. Take your forms to court
Question & Answer
How do I ask for a restraining order in my family law application?You must take all your completed forms to family court to have the sign, date, and stamp the forms. This is called “issuing” your application.
Pay court fees
The Ontario Court of Justice has no court fees. But, if your case is at the Superior Court of Justice or the Family Branch of the Superior Court of Justice, you have to pay court fees. These include:
- $202 to an Application
- $212 to file an Application that includes a
If you can’t afford to pay the court fees, you can ask the court for a “fee waiver”. This means you don’t have to pay most court fees. The Ontario government’s A Guide to Fee Waiver Requests tells you which court fees can be waived and how to ask for a fee waiver.
Serve your documents
You have to serve your partner with a copy of your documents so they know that you’ve started a case against them. This gives them a chance to respond to what you’ve written and to tell their side of the story.
Your case will not move forward until you your partner. You will not get a until the court process has started and you appear before a judge.
You must serve your partner within 6 months of getting your application . If you don’t serve them within 6 months, the court may close your file.
There is a guide on how to serve documents.
Whoever serves your partner must fill out Form 6B: Affidavit of Service. In it, they say when, where, and how they served your partner. The form proves that your partner got a copy of your documents and knows that they have to respond to them.
After you serve your partner, take your original documents and Form 6B: Affidavit of Service to the courthouse and file them. This means you put them in your court file. You do this at the court counter, with the help of the court clerk.
There is a guide on how to file documents.
Get a response
After you serve your partner, they have 30 days to respond (or 60 days if they live outside of Canada or the United States).
