By Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce · Updated
Somebody handed you a document headed "Form 8: Application (General)", or it arrived by courier, or a process server left it with you. The first page tells you, in capitals, that you have 30 days. This guide is about what those 30 days are for, what happens if they run out, and what else is due on the same clock that the capitals do not mention. This guide is for Ontario. The 30-day Answer, Form 10, and Forms 13 and 13.1 are creatures of the Ontario Family Law Rules. Alberta gives 20 days for a Statement of Defence; British Columbia gives 30 days for a Response to Family Claim on a different form. Nothing here transfers between provinces.
| What you were served with | Form 8: Application (General), the document that starts a contested family case in Ontario, including a divorce with claims attached. |
|---|---|
| Your deadline | 30 days after the Application is served on you to serve and file an Answer. 60 days if you were served outside Canada or the United States. Read from the face of Form 8, June 2025 version. |
| What you file | An Answer, Form 10, served on the applicant and filed at the court office with an Affidavit of Service, Form 6B. |
| If you do nothing | The form's own words: "the case will go ahead without you and the court may make an order and enforce it against you." |
| Also due | A Financial Statement: Form 13 if the case includes a support claim only, Form 13.1 if it includes a property or matrimonial-home claim. Required "even if you do not answer this case." |
| The one exception | No financial statement is needed if the only support claim is for child support in the table amount under the Child Support Guidelines. |
| Your own claims | Made in the "Claim by Respondent" section of the Answer, not in a separate document. |
| Governing rules | Rule 10 (Answer) and Rule 13 (Financial Statements) of the Family Law Rules, O. Reg. 114/99. |
Keeping track of dates like these across a stack of letters is exactly what SortMyDivorce does — start a free trial, no card needed.
Form 8 is not a letter and it is not an offer. It is the court document that opens a family case in the Ontario Court of Justice, the Superior Court of Justice or the Family Court branch. In a divorce, it is where your spouse sets out what they are asking the court to order: the divorce itself, and usually some combination of parenting arrangements, child support, spousal support, a division of property, or possession of the home.
Three things on the first two pages matter more than everything else in the package.
The warning in capitals. The June 2025 version says: "YOU HAVE ONLY 30 DAYS AFTER THIS APPLICATION IS SERVED ON YOU (60 DAYS IF THIS APPLICATION IS SERVED ON YOU OUTSIDE CANADA OR THE UNITED STATES) TO SERVE AND FILE AN ANSWER." The clock runs from service, not from the date the form was signed or filed, and not from the day you first read it.
The paragraph about a financial statement. Page two has two checkboxes. If the case includes a claim for support but not property, the box says you must fill out a Financial Statement, Form 13, serve it and file it "even if you do not answer this case." If the case includes a claim for property or exclusive possession of the matrimonial home, the same sentence applies to Form 13.1. This is the obligation most people miss, because it sits below the warning and is not in capitals.
The claims themselves. The Application lists what is being asked for, usually as a series of ticked boxes followed by numbered paragraphs of facts. Every ticked box is a claim you either accept or oppose. Read them one by one, and mark the ones you disagree with, because that list is the skeleton of your Answer.
The Answer is Form 10. It has three jobs.
It says which claims you oppose and why. For each claim in the Application you either consent, or you oppose it and state the facts you rely on. Unopposed claims are, in practical terms, conceded.
It carries your own claims. If you want the court to order something the applicant did not ask for, or to order it differently, that goes in the "Claim by Respondent" page of the Answer. The form itself says to attach that page and include it as page 3, and otherwise not to attach it. There is no separate counter-application.
It triggers your own financial statement. Form 10 opens with instructions headed "Financial Statement": complete Form 13 if the case involves support, Form 13.1 if it involves property or the matrimonial home. The financial statement is sworn or affirmed, which puts it in a different category from the Answer.
Serving and filing are two separate acts. You serve a copy on the applicant (or their lawyer, if they have one), and you file a copy at the court office together with an Affidavit of Service, Form 6B, proving that you served it. Doing one without the other does not stop the clock.
The form says it plainly: the case will go ahead without you.
In a divorce, that means the applicant can ask for the orders in the Application on the strength of their own material. You are not entitled to a hearing on claims you did not answer. If the Application includes support, the court can set support without your evidence of your income. If it includes property, the court can divide it on the applicant's numbers.
Two things are worth knowing about the practical shape of this.
Silence is not neutral. People sometimes assume that not responding keeps their options open. The opposite is true: the Application's own text says an order may be made and enforced against you. Getting a default order set aside afterwards is a separate motion, with its own cost and its own uncertainty.
The financial statement is owed regardless. Even a person who intends not to contest anything is told, on the form, to serve and file Form 13 or 13.1 if support or property is claimed. The exception is a claim for table-amount child support only.
Buried in the same block of capitals on page one is a second timetable most respondents never notice. If, after 365 days, the case has not been scheduled for trial, the clerk sends a warning that the case will be dismissed within 60 days unless the parties file proof that it has settled or one of them asks for a case or settlement conference.
That is not your problem in the first month. It becomes relevant later, when a case has drifted and neither side has moved it, because the dismissal warning arrives as a letter and reads like an administrative notice rather than the deadline it is.
Write down the date you were served, and how. Personally handed to you, left with someone at your address, mailed, emailed. The deadline is 30 days from service, and if there is ever an argument about whether you answered in time, this is the fact it turns on. Keep the envelope or the courier slip.
Count forward 30 days and put it somewhere you will see it. Not 30 days from today; 30 from service. If you were served outside Canada or the United States, the figure is 60.
Read every ticked box and every numbered paragraph. Mark each one as agree, disagree, or unsure. That list is what you take to a lawyer, and it is most of the work of drafting an Answer.
Work out which financial statement applies. Support only, Form 13. Anything touching property or the home, Form 13.1. If the only support claim is child support in the table amount, neither is required, but check that assumption against the Application rather than assuming it.
Start the financial statement now. Form 13.1 runs to ten pages and asks for income, expenses, every asset and every debt at three dates, with supporting documents. That takes longer than the Answer, and it is sworn, which means it needs to be right rather than quick. The guide to the Ontario financial statement walks through it.
Decide what you want the court to order. If there is anything you want that the Application does not offer, it goes in the Claim by Respondent page of your Answer. Leaving it out does not lose the right forever, but it does mean the case starts on your spouse's agenda alone.
Book a lawyer before the second week. Even if you plan to represent yourself, a single consultation with a marked-up Application and a draft list of claims is the most efficient hour you will buy in the whole case. A lawyer who receives that instead of a blank first meeting can tell you where you are exposed.
Verification note. The deadlines and form requirements on this page were read from the prescribed court forms, which are made under the Family Law Rules and state the deadlines on their face. The text of Rule 10 and Rule 13 themselves could not be read from e-Laws in this pass, because that site now renders only in a browser. Two consequences: this page does not quote the subrule numbers for the 30-day period or the financial-statement timing, and it does not state how time is computed at the end of the period. Confirm both against the current regulation or with a lawyer before relying on a date that falls close to the limit.
From service. The form ties the deadline to the day the Application "is served on you." If a process server handed it to you on a Tuesday, the count started that Tuesday whether or not you opened the envelope. How the court counts the days at the end of the period, and what happens if the last day falls on a weekend, is a question for the rules on computing time; ask your lawyer rather than assuming.
You still file a full Answer. You can consent to every claim but one and oppose that one. The Answer is not all-or-nothing, but it is the only place the court will look for your position on each claim.
If the case includes a claim for support or property, the Application says yes, "even if you do not answer this case." The only stated exception is where the only support claim is for child support in the table amount under the Child Support Guidelines.
The rules allow time to be extended, but an extension is something you ask for, not something you assume. If you are near the end of the 30 days without an Answer, the realistic options are to file what you have and amend it later, or to have a lawyer seek the applicant's consent to a short extension in writing. Do not rely on an informal "take your time" from the other side unless it is in writing.
Serving is delivering a copy to the other party. Filing is lodging a copy with the court office, with an Affidavit of Service (Form 6B) proving that you served it. The form requires both. An Answer served but not filed is not on the court's record; an Answer filed but not served has not been given to the person who has to respond to it.
The form says 60 days if the Application "is served on you outside Canada or the United States." Served in the United States, it is 30. Where you were served is what matters, not where you live now.
Last reviewed September 2026. Researched and written by Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice — laws, fees and forms change, so please confirm current details with the official sources above or a local family lawyer.
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