Serving legal documents on the Attorney General of British Columbia

Email, regular mail and facsimile delivery are not valid forms of service of a Notice of Civil Claim, Notice of Application, Petition to the Court, application for probate or administration, or other originating process.

You may serve an originating document in one of the following ways:

• Bring the documents to the Ministry of Attorney General in Victoria (address provided below) and give a copy of the documents to one of the lawyers in the Ministry
• Hire a process server and ask them to take the step enumerated above
• Send a copy of your document through Canada Post by registered mail to the address below. Details about registered mail are available on the Canada Post website. Please do not send your document through Canada Post using any other mailing method (for example, do not use XpressPost)

Ministry of Attorney General
Legal Services Branch
PO Box 9290 STN PROV GOVT
1001 Douglas Street
Victoria, BC  V8W 9J7
Attention: Duty Counsel

Providing notice of an application for probate or administration only

To provide notice of an application for probate or administration only, notice may be given by email at the following address:

AGLSBEscheat@gov.bc.ca

Ministry staff will provide confirmation of receipt for notices sent by email. 

More information

For further information about serving originating pleadings generally, please see section 8 of the Crown Proceeding Act.

You may also refer to Supreme Court Civil Rule 4-3(6) that provides: A document to be served on the Attorney General must be served at the Ministry of Attorney General in the City of Victoria, and is sufficiently served if it is left during office hours with any lawyer on the staff of the Attorney General at Victoria or mailed by registered mail to the Deputy Attorney General in Victoria.

For further information about providing notice of an application for probate or administration, please refer to Supreme Court Rule 25-2 (2), Rule 25-2 (5) and Rule 25-2 (6).