BC Supreme Court Form F20: List of Documents & Family Disclosure

Document disclosure is broader than “documents I plan to use.” Rule 9-1 requires a Form F20 list that includes documents in a party’s possession or control that could be used by any party at trial to prove or disprove a material fact, plus other documents the party intends to refer to at trial.

What is Form F20?

Form F20 is the List of Documents used for document discovery in a Supreme Court family case. It organizes documents by the categories required by the Rule and identifies documents over which privilege is claimed.

The usual 35-day deadlines

A claimant who filed the Notice of Family Claim generally serves their F20 on a party within 35 days after being served with that party’s Response to Family Claim or Response to Counterclaim.
A respondent who filed a Response to Family Claim generally serves their F20 within 35 days after serving that response.
A party who files a Response to Counterclaim generally serves their F20 within 35 days after serving the response, unless that list has already been served on that party.

What does “possession or control” mean?

The Rule is not limited to paper in a filing cabinet. Depending on the circumstances, relevant records may include electronic messages, emails, banking records, tax records, business documents, photographs, cloud-stored material and other records a party possesses or controls. The legal test is relevance to material facts and the specific discovery obligations, not whether the document is convenient or favourable.

Privilege

If privilege is claimed over a document, the claim is identified in the list with the ground of privilege. A party should not casually disclose legal advice or other potentially privileged material without understanding the consequences.

Updating the list

Disclosure is not necessarily finished after the first F20. The Rules contain continuing and supplementary-list obligations when additional responsive documents are identified or required. Demands for documents and applications for production can follow if disclosure is incomplete.

Cost planning

Document disclosure is a major cost driver in complex family litigation. Organizing records early, using clear file names and dates, removing true duplicates and separating potentially privileged material can reduce lawyer review time. But deleting, hiding or selectively omitting responsive documents can create much larger legal problems.