Most court applications in Alberta must be served on the other party in advance, at least five days before the hearing under the Alberta Rules of Court, so that both sides are heard. An application without notice, still often called an ex parte application, asks the Court to make an order before the other party knows the application exists. The Court of King’s Bench will hear a family matter without notice only where the situation justifies it: a risk of violence or immediate harm to a party or a child, a risk that a child will be removed from Alberta, or a danger that property will be moved beyond reach before an order can be obtained. Emergency Protection Orders are made without notice by statute, and the Family Property Act expressly allows exclusive possession orders and orders restraining a transfer of property to be made without notice where there is a danger of injury or of a transfer that would defeat a claim.
A without notice order is temporary by design. The Court sets a return date on which the other party is heard; the applicant must serve the order and the material it was based on, and the applicant carries a duty of full and frank disclosure, which means telling the Court the facts that hurt the application as well as those that help it; an order obtained on an incomplete picture is vulnerable to being set aside for that reason. For the party on the receiving end, an ex parte order arrives with no warning and an immediate effect on where they live or when they see their children, and the return date is the first opportunity to put their side before a justice, often within days of being served.
Keystone Legal brings without-notice applications at the Calgary Courts Centre where the facts support them and responds to them for clients who have been served. On the applicant’s side the firm prepares the commencing document, the urgent request marked without notice, an affidavit that establishes both the urgency and the full picture, and a draft order confined to what the emergency requires, and then serves the order and prepares for the return date. On the respondent’s side, the firm obtains the filed material, prepares the response within days, and argues at the return date that the order be set aside, narrowed or replaced with terms both parties can live with.
Calgary clients engage Keystone Legal for without-notice matters, on either side, through a confidential virtual process, in English or French, with in-person meetings arranged where they help. The firm accepts these applications where they proceed through the Calgary Courts Centre. If you have been served with an order made without notice to you, or you need one, call (587) 328-3328.
