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If a court proceeding has been started against you, you have two choices. You can do nothing or you can respond to the proceeding and defend yourself. If you agree with the orders the other party is asking for, doing nothing is the cheapest and quickest way to handle the matter. On the other hand, if you only partly agree or completely disagree you ''must'' respond to the claim or you risk losing by default.
This section describes basic elements of the Provincial Court process, but please refer to consider the resources on Legal Aid BC's Family Law website and the links posted at the end of this section. This section also deals with the processes for starting a proceeding in the Supreme Court. For a more complete picture of the court process, you should read this section together with the section on [[Starting a Court Proceeding in a Family Matter|Starting a Court Proceeding]].
==The Provincial Court==
If you're a court proceeding has been started in Surrey or Victoria, a different process for ''[https://www.clicklaw.bc.ca/resource/4843 Early Resolution]'' registries will apply.
If you are not in Surrey or Victoria, and a court proceeding has been started against you in the Provincial Court, you are the ''respondent'' in the proceeding. The person who started the court proceeding by filing a once you have been served with [[PCFR Form 3 Application About a Family Law Matter|Application About a Family Law Matter in Form 3]] . The person who started the proceeding is the ''applicant''. If you agree with the orders the applicant is asking for, doing nothing is the fastest way to handle things and you should let the applicant know that you're okay with the orders they're asking for. On the other hand, if you only partly agree or if you completely disagree with what the applicant is asking for, you should prepare a ''[[PCFR Form 6 Reply to an Application About a Family Law Matter|Reply to an Application About a Family Law Matter]]'' in Form 6. This is a special form required by the [http://canlii.ca/t/b8rn Provincial Court Family Rules].
You can learn more about the Provincial Court's procedure from Legal Aid BC's Family Law website, in particular the resource called ''[https://family.legalaid.bc.ca/bc-legal-system/ive-been-served-court-form/served-provincial-court-form/respond-to-form-3 Respond if you've been served with Form 3]''.