By Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce · Updated
Alberta gives the shortest response window of the three big provinces. If you were served in Alberta, you have 20 days to file and serve a Statement of Defence, and the count started on the day the papers reached you. This guide is about what the document is asking, what your three possible responses are, and which of them actually preserves your position. This guide is for Alberta. The Statement of Claim for Divorce, the 20-day Statement of Defence and the Demand for Notice are Alberta Court of King's Bench procedure under the Alberta Rules of Court. Ontario runs on an Application and a 30-day Answer; British Columbia on a Notice of Family Claim and a 30-day Response. The forms, the names and the deadlines do not transfer.
| What you were served with | A Statement of Claim for Divorce (Form FL-1), or a Statement of Claim for Divorce and Division of Family Property (Form FL-3). Filed in the Court of King's Bench. |
|---|---|
| Your deadline | 20 days after service if you were served in Alberta; one month if served elsewhere in Canada; 2 months if served outside Canada. Rule 3.31(3), read from the regulation 3 Sep 2026. |
| To oppose anything | File and serve a Statement of Defence, Form FL-4 (Rule 12.11(1)). |
| To be kept informed without opposing | File a Demand for Notice (Rule 12.11(2)), which entitles you to notice of hearings and, per the Government of Alberta, to see the Divorce Judgment before it goes to a judge. |
| To claim something yourself | A counterclaim: Form FL-5 (divorce), FL-6 (division of family property) or FL-7 (both), under Rule 12.11(3). |
| If you do nothing | The Government of Alberta's page: you "will get a copy of the Divorce Judgment in the mail." The claim proceeds on the plaintiff's material. |
| Usually served with it | A Notice to Disclose, which runs on its own one-month clock. See the separate guide. |
| Governing rules | Rules 3.31 and 12.11 of the Alberta Rules of Court, AR 124/2010. |
Keeping track of dates like these across a stack of letters is exactly what SortMyDivorce does — start a free trial, no card needed.
In Alberta a divorce is started by a Statement of Claim, filed in the Court of King's Bench. There are two versions you are likely to meet. Form FL-1 is a Statement of Claim for Divorce on its own. Form FL-3 is a Statement of Claim for Divorce and Division of Family Property, which adds the property claim under the Family Property Act to the same document. (A third, FL-3.1, is the older matrimonial-property version for relationships that fall under the previous Act.)
The Government of Alberta's own description of the document is a good one: it "outlines details including child support, custody and spousal support" and "other claims made by the person who filed the form." The person who filed it is the plaintiff. You are the defendant. Those are the terms the Rules use, and they are the terms you will see on every form that follows.
The grounds for the divorce will be one of three: one year of separation, adultery, or mental or physical cruelty. The Government of Alberta notes that the details you may wish to contest are in the "Grounds" section. In practice the grounds are rarely where the fight is; the claims that follow them are.
Rule 3.31 of the Alberta Rules of Court is the provision, and it is short enough to quote in full.
Subrule (2): "The defendant must file the statement of defence and serve it on the plaintiff within the applicable time after service of the statement of claim."
Subrule (3): "The applicable time is (a) 20 days if service is effected in Alberta, (b) one month if service is effected outside Alberta but in Canada, and (c) 2 months if service is effected outside Canada."
The Government of Alberta's page says the same thing in plainer words: "20 days – if you were served in Alberta; 1 month – if you were served in Canada; 2 months – if you were served outside of Canada."
Two points that people get wrong.
It runs from service, not from filing. The date stamped on the front of the Statement of Claim is the date it was filed at the courthouse. Your 20 days start when it was served on you, which is usually later. Write down the day you were served and how.
Where you were served decides the period, not where you live. A person who lives in Alberta but was handed the papers while in Ontario was served outside Alberta but in Canada, and has one month.
The Rules give a defendant three distinct things to file, and they do different jobs.
A Statement of Defence, Form FL-4. This is the document for anyone who wants to oppose anything in the claim. Rule 12.11(1): "Where a defendant wishes to oppose a statement of claim referred to in this Part … the defendant must file a statement of defence in Form FL-4." You do not have to oppose everything. A Statement of Defence can accept the divorce and dispute the support, or accept the support and dispute the property. What it cannot do is arrive late.
A Demand for Notice. Rule 12.11(2) is for the defendant who "wishes to receive notice of any hearing but does not wish to oppose a statement of claim." It is filed under Rule 3.34, and the Government of Alberta describes its practical effect: "If you want to look at the Divorce Judgement before it goes to a judge, fill out a Demand for Notice by Defendant(s) form." This is the right response when you genuinely accept every claim but do not want the case decided out of your sight.
A counterclaim. If you want the court to order something the plaintiff did not ask for, Rule 12.11(3) gives you a counterclaim for divorce (Form FL-5), for division of family property (Form FL-6), or for both (Form FL-7). A counterclaim is filed alongside a Statement of Defence, not instead of one.
The mistake to avoid is filing a Demand for Notice when you actually disagree with something. A Demand for Notice gets you told about hearings; it does not put your position before the court. If you want to be heard on a claim, that needs a Statement of Defence within the period.
The Government of Alberta's page puts it gently: if you do not want to contest anything, you "don't have to do anything" and "will get a copy of the Divorce Judgment in the mail."
That sentence is written for the person who agrees with the whole claim. For anyone else, what it describes is the case being decided without them. Part 3 of the Rules provides for judgment in default where a defendant has not filed a statement of defence or demand for notice within the period, and the plaintiff's material is what the court will have in front of it: their figures for income, their list of property, their proposed parenting arrangement.
Getting a default judgment set aside afterwards is a separate application, and you would be asking for it as the person who missed the deadline. That is a worse starting position than filing a short Statement of Defence on day 19 and amending it later.
The province's own sequence for contesting a Statement of Claim is worth reproducing, because it is the sequence the court office will expect.
1. Fill out a Statement of Defence form. If you are also making a claim, fill out the counterclaim form that matches it: a Counterclaim for Divorce, or a Counterclaim for Division of Matrimonial (or Family) Property. 2. Make two copies of the completed forms. 3. File the forms at the Court of King's Bench. The clerk keeps the original and stamps your copies. 4. Send the other party, and their lawyer if they have one, a copy of the filed forms. 5. Complete an Affidavit of Personal Service and file it with the Court of King's Bench.
Filing and serving are separate acts and both have to happen inside the period. A Statement of Defence filed at the courthouse but never served on the plaintiff has not been served "within the applicable time" under Rule 3.31(2).
A Statement of Claim for Divorce in Alberta rarely arrives alone. It is very often served together with a Notice to Disclose, the court form that demands sixteen categories of financial documents and gives you one month from service to produce them.
The two run on different clocks and different rules. The Statement of Defence is 20 days under Rule 3.31. The disclosure is one month under Rule 12.41. It is entirely possible to answer the claim on time and still be in default on disclosure, and the disclosure default has its own consequences, including the court imputing income to you. The separate guide to the Notice to Disclose covers that document; the point here is only that you may have two deadlines in the envelope, not one.
Record the date and method of service. Handed to you personally, left at your home, sent by a method the court permitted. The whole period turns on this date.
Count 20 days forward from that date (or one month, or two months, depending on where you were served) and treat it as fixed.
Read every claim, not just the grounds. Mark each one agree, disagree or unsure. The claims about support, parenting and property are where a Statement of Defence earns its keep.
Check whether a Notice to Disclose is in the package. If it is, its one-month clock is already running and the document gathering it requires takes longer than the Statement of Defence.
Decide which of the three responses fits. Disagree with anything: Statement of Defence. Agree with everything but want to see the judgment first: Demand for Notice. Want something the claim does not offer: counterclaim, with a Statement of Defence.
See a lawyer before the second week. A marked-up Statement of Claim and a one-page list of what you agree and disagree with is the most productive first meeting you can have, and it leaves time to file inside the period.
Verification note. The consolidated regulation was read for Rules 3.31 and 12.11 and the forms table. The default-judgment provisions of Part 3 were not read in full for this page; the statement that the claim proceeds on the plaintiff's material rests on the Government of Alberta's page and on the existence of those provisions, not on their text. The Government of Alberta's page names the property counterclaim as "Counterclaim for Division of Matrimonial Property"; the regulation's forms table lists both a family-property form (FL-6) and a matrimonial-property form (FL-6.1). Which applies depends on when the relationship falls under the current Family Property Act, and that is a question for your lawyer.
No. The date on the front is the filing date. Rule 3.31(2) runs the period from service on you, which is the day the papers reached you. If that was yesterday, your 20 days started yesterday.
Yes. A Statement of Defence is the document for opposing any claim, and it can accept some claims while disputing others. A Demand for Notice does not put a position before the court; it only entitles you to notice.
Rule 12.11(2) describes it precisely: for a defendant who wants to receive notice of any hearing but does not wish to oppose the claim. The Government of Alberta adds the practical benefit, which is seeing the Divorce Judgment before it goes to a judge. It is the right choice only when you genuinely accept every claim.
Rule 12.11(3) frames the counterclaim as what a defendant files when they wish to make a claim against the plaintiff, and the Government of Alberta's sequence lists it alongside the Statement of Defence. Treat them as a pair. If you have a claim of your own, you almost certainly also have something to oppose.
The period in Rule 3.31(3) applies to a statement of claim generally. The form that answers a property-only claim differs (Form FL-4 for family property; Form FL-4.1 for a matrimonial-property claim under the older Act), but this page is about the divorce claim. If you were served with a property-only claim, confirm the form with a lawyer.
Rule 3.31(3)(c): two months. Served elsewhere in Canada, one month. The rule looks at where service was effected, not at your residence.
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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