When your ex breaks the court order: enforcement in BC family law

You went through the court process. You got the order. You thought that meant the fight was finally over. Then your ex started ignoring it, and now you are wondering whether the whole exercise was worth the paper it was written on.

It is. But you may need to use the enforcement tools BC family law provides. We help BC families enforce orders every day, from our offices in Victoria, Nanaimo, Vancouver, and Surrey, and by video across the province. This article walks you through the most common types of breaches, what the law gives you to deal with them, and how to make enforcement actually stick.

Why the police usually say “it is a civil matter”

This is one of the most common and most frustrating moments in a family law file. You call the police because your ex did not return the children, or stopped paying support, or is refusing to hand over property the order says is yours. The officer arrives, looks at the order, and tells you it is a civil matter.

They are not wrong, and they are also not refusing to help out of indifference. With some exceptions, family law orders are enforced through the family court system, not the criminal one. The exceptions are protection orders and a few other criminal-side tools, where breach is a Criminal Code offence and police can arrest. For everything else, parenting time, support, property, the enforcement happens through court applications, BCFMA, and other civil mechanisms.

Knowing which tool to use, and using it quickly, is what changes a powerless feeling into a working strategy.

The four most common kinds of breaches

Most enforcement files fall into one of four categories. Each has its own tools.

• 1. Parenting time or contact orders. The other party will not produce the children when they are supposed to, blocks your time, or does not return them on schedule.
• 2. Support orders. Child support or spousal support is not being paid in full, on time, or at all.
• 3. Property and financial orders. A payment, transfer, or asset division ordered by the court is not happening.
• 4. Protection orders. The other party is contacting you, coming near you, or otherwise breaching a protection order. (This is a criminal matter, covered in our separate protection order article.)

Enforcing parenting time and contact orders

Section 61 of the Family Law Act is the main tool for enforcing parenting time and contact orders. It was designed specifically to fix a long-standing problem: under the old law, the only remedy was contempt of court, which judges granted reluctantly and which often did nothing to fix the underlying parenting dispute.

The legal test

To get a remedy under section 61, you have to show that the other party wrongfully denied parenting time or contact that was set out in an agreement filed with the court or in a court order. The application must be made within twelve months of the denial.

Remedies a judge can order

Section 61 gives the court an escalating set of options:

• Requiring the parties (and sometimes the child) to attend family dispute resolution, counselling, or specified programs.
• Make-up or compensatory parenting time to replace the time that was lost.
• Supervised transfer of the child if the handovers themselves are the flashpoint.
• Reimbursement of reasonable expenses caused by the denial (cancelled flights, lost activity fees, missed days off work).
• A fine of up to $5,000 against the offending party.
• Up to thirty days in jail, in extreme repeat-breach cases.
• Any other order the court considers appropriate.

Judges tend to start at the lower-impact end of the list and escalate if breaches continue. The earlier you bring the application, the cleaner the record looks. Patterns matter.

When denial is not wrongful: section 62

BC law recognizes that there are situations where a parent must withhold the child. Section 62 of the Family Law Act lists these defences, including:

• Reasonable belief that the child would suffer family violence.
• Reasonable belief the other party was impaired by drugs or alcohol at the scheduled time.
• Child illness, supported by a written statement from a doctor or nurse practitioner.
• The other party repeatedly failed to exercise their parenting time in the past twelve months without notice or excuse.
• Other circumstances the court considers sufficient justification.

If you are the parent withholding the child for one of these reasons, get legal advice quickly and document the reason carefully. Even where denial is not wrongful, the court can still order compensatory parenting time for the missed days.

When the other parent will not exercise their parenting time

Section 63 handles the reverse problem: a parent who is repeatedly absent. If your ex keeps missing scheduled parenting time and disrupting your child’s routine, you can apply for an order requiring counselling, family dispute resolution, or reimbursement of the expenses their no-shows have caused you. This is an underused tool that can be valuable when chronic flakiness, not chronic conflict, is the issue.

Enforcing support orders: BCFMA (formerly FMEP)

Support enforcement in BC is largely handled by the BC Family Maintenance Agency, or BCFMA. Many people still know it by its previous name, the Family Maintenance Enforcement Program, or FMEP. It is the same service. BCFMA is a free provincial program that monitors and enforces child support and spousal support orders and written agreements filed with the court.

How it works

• Either party can enrol a support order or filed written agreement with BCFMA. There is no cost.
• Once enrolled, payments are made through BCFMA, which forwards them to the recipient and keeps records. This solves a major evidentiary problem: a clear paper trail of every payment, missed payment, and partial payment.
• If the payor falls behind, BCFMA takes enforcement steps without you having to go back to court.

What BCFMA can do to a payor who falls behind

• Garnish wages and bank accounts.
• Intercept federal payments, including income tax refunds, GST credits, and Employment Insurance benefits.
• Suspend driver’s licence and motor vehicle registration.
• Block the issuance or renewal of a Canadian passport.
• Register a charge on real estate owned by the payor.
• Charge default fees and interest on arrears.
• In serious cases, refer the matter for criminal charges for wilful evasion.

If you have a support order or filed support agreement and your ex is not paying reliably, enrolling with BCFMA is almost always a sound first step. It moves the enforcement work off your plate and onto a provincial agency with strong collection tools.

Enforcing property and other financial orders

When the order requires the other party to pay you a specific sum, transfer a property, or do something else financial, and they refuse, the main tools are:

• Garnishing wages or bank accounts through a court process.
• A writ of execution against assets, which allows the sheriff to seize and sell property to satisfy the debt.
• A charge against real property the payor owns.
• A contempt of court application, in serious or wilful cases.

Sections 228 and 230 of the Family Law Act also give the court broad powers to enforce orders respecting conduct and orders generally. These tools are more involved than a BCFMA referral, and they almost always require a lawyer.

Contempt of court: the heavy hammer

Contempt of court is the strongest enforcement tool available. It is used when a party has wilfully and knowingly breached a clear court order, and lesser remedies have not worked or would not be enough.

Contempt findings can result in fines or imprisonment. Courts grant contempt orders sparingly because the consequences are serious and the legal test is high. The order has to be clear and unambiguous, the party has to have known about it, and the breach has to be intentional rather than the result of confusion or impossibility.

Contempt is more often used as a strategic tool to compel future compliance than as an end-stage punishment. Even the threat of contempt, properly framed, can reset behaviour.

Documentation: the single most important thing you can do

Almost every enforcement application stands or falls on documentation. Before you make any move, get organized.

• Keep a dated log of every breach: date, time, what happened, who was there, what your ex said, what you did in response.
• Save every text, email, and voicemail. Take screenshots, including timestamps.
• Track financial breaches with bank statements showing what was supposed to be paid and what was actually received.
• If children are involved, note the impact: missed school events, cancelled appointments, your child’s reaction.
• Keep receipts for any expenses caused by the breach (rebooked flights, replacement childcare).
• Stay calm in writing. Anything you send in response will end up in court too.

What enforcement usually costs

Enforcement costs depend on the tool. BCFMA is free. A single section 61 application in Provincial Court can be relatively contained. A contested enforcement matter in Supreme Court, especially one involving contempt or complex property, runs higher. We are direct about cost ranges from the first appointment, and we bill weekly so you always know where you stand.

One important note: section 61 of the Family Law Act allows the court to order the breaching party to pay your reasonable expenses, including legal fees in some cases. Enforcement is one of the few areas of family law where the law actually leans toward making the breacher pay.

How Pathway Legal handles enforcement files

Our approach to enforcement is built on the same P.A.T.H. method we use across the firm: Practical, Action-Oriented, Trustworthy, and Heart-Centred.

• Practical. We pick the right tool. Not every breach needs a contempt application. Many resolve faster and cheaper with a focused section 61 application or a BCFMA enrolment.
• Action-Oriented. Enforcement files move on a clock. The section 61 twelve-month window matters. Patterns get harder to prove if they are not documented as they happen. We move quickly.
• Trustworthy. You see the strategy, the cost, and the realistic outcome before we file anything. No surprises.
• Heart-Centred. Enforcement files happen when a person is already exhausted by the situation. We carry the procedural weight so you can focus on your life and your kids.

Pathway Legal Law Corporation, Family Law Lawyers. All rights reserved Val Hemminger

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