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{{Creative Commons
|title = JP Boyd on Family Law
|author = [[JP Boyd|John-Paul Boyd]] and Courthouse Libraries BC
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Your affidavit should set out the reasons why personal service is impossible. If it's because you don't know where the respondent is, you should say so. You should also say that you have no means of contacting the respondent, for example, through family or friends. If you can't serve the respondent because he or she is avoiding service, you should describe how you've tried to serve the respondent and how often you've tried.
Because the respondent hasn't been served you can make your application right away, without having the follow the usual rules which that give the respondent time to reply to your application. You can file your application and have your application heard the same day. Apart from this, the remainder of your application <span class="noglossary">will</span> be just like the [[How Do I Make an Interim Application in a Family Law Matter in the Supreme Court?|normal application process]].
==Options for substituted service==
If you have no idea at all where the respondent might be, you can ask the judge to allow you to serve the respondent by posting a copy of your Notice of Family Claim in the court registry for a certain period of time, usually no less than 30 days. This is the cheapest means of alternative service, and you really have to show that you've got no idea where the respondent is, no relatives or friends to <span class="noglossary">contact</span> him or her through, and no idea where the respondent works.
If the court grants this order, the court <span class="noglossary">will</span> specify how long the Notice of Family Claim must remain posted. Your job <span class="noglossary">will</span> be to take the judge's order, and a copy of your Notice of Family Claim to the court registrar. The registrar <span class="noglossary">will</span> arrange for the posting, take note when it was put up , and take note when it was taken down.
===Notices in the classified ads===
==The effect of substituted service==
The goal of serving someone substitutionally is to try and to alert that person to the fact of the court proceeding and tell him or her how to get more information about the proceeding. The effect of an order for substituted service is that a person <span class="noglossary">will</span> be deemed to have been served once all the terms of the order for substituted service are met. Whether the respondent is actually alerted to the proceeding is another story; the point here is that the court <span class="noglossary">will</span> consider the respondent to have been properly served. This <span class="noglossary">will</span> allow you to go on with your court proceeding in the normal manner once you've met the terms of your substituted service order, whether the respondent has found out about your claim or not.
The effect of an order for substituted service is that a person <span class="noglossary">will</span> be deemed to have been served once all the terms of the order for substituted service are met. Whether the respondent is actually alerted to the proceeding is another story. The point here is that the court <span class="noglossary">will</span> consider the respondent to have been properly served. This <span class="noglossary">will</span> allow you to go on with your court proceeding in the normal manner once you've met the terms of your substituted service order, whether the respondent has found out about your claim or not. The most important thing to know about substituted service, is that the time before you can do anything else in your court proceeding — such as applying for a default judgment, or making an application for temporary relief — doesn't start ticking until after the terms of the order of substituted service have been fulfilled. In other words, it isn't until the terms of the order are done that you can start counting the time until your next application to court.
For example, say the order allows you to serve someone by posting a copy of your pleadings in the court registry for 45 days. It isn't until the forty-sixth day that you can start counting time. Since the respondent has 30 days to file a Response to Family Claim, you <span class="noglossary">will</span> have to wait 76 days (46 plus 30) from the date you got the order and the order was posted before you can ask for a default judgment or make any other application to the court.
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