How To Write An Affidavit For Family Court?

When you decide to fight something legally, you often hire a lawyer to represent you, but what happens when you decide to represent yourself?  Hiring a lawyer is expensive, but it does ease the process of filing and documentation to fight in court.

On the other hand, the decision to represent yourself in court comes with several challenges that may be tough to encounter. This is why you need guidance on the right procedures to follow when filing an affidavit on your own.

Note that a court employee can only answer some questions about the court processes and documentation. You cannot expect legal advice from them.

This is why we are here to provide you with a complete outline on how to write an affidavit for family court. Follow the outline below. Whether it is your divorce or about your children, we will give you everything you need.

How To Write An Affidavit For Family Court?

Before writing an affidavit, it is important to know what it contains in an affidavit. To begin with, it is required that you start with sufficient background information. This information would include some of the basic facts which will mention below

1. The date of the beginning of the relationship

1. Date of divorce

1. Details about the children, if any, such as date of birth and age

1. Professional statuses of both the spouses during the marriage

1. Unfortunate challenges faced by the family such as addiction to drugs, domestic violence, etc

1. Mention of children having special needs

1. Financial contribution to the relationship for instance mortgage payments

This background information will help the court get a good knowledge of the situation. Check Alberta family court forms to know more.

Then when you start preparing an affidavit, make sure to include information on your separation. Make sure that the wordings are rather professional and not full of emotions. The court needs to identify it as logical statements and not the words of an emotionally stressed out person.

I believe it is also necessary to provide some details on the relationship the children share with their parents individually. Further, mention the members who are likely to live in the house with children after the separation occurs and how they might affect the lives of the children.

The Proper Format Of Writing An Affidavit

The structure of an affidavit is important. The document should be typed, and content must be written in paragraphs, which should be numbered before sending it to the family court. Also, do not forget to put headings before providing all the necessary information. These headings could be

• Background of the marriage

• Arrangement proposal for children

• Current Assets, loans, and financial resources

Affidavits should be logical yet convincing. This is why it is important for the content to flow from one heading to another, logically. The serial of the headings must be put logically for the court to see a clear picture of your situation.

Keep in mind that the information should contain nothing but facts for the court to make sense of. Beware of writing emotional words in your content. This would convince the court that you are emotionally driven and not rational.

Another important task is to annex your content with any available supporting documents, including photographs, messages, emails, and text to your affidavit document. This could help your content be clearer and easily identifiable.

Do’s and Don’ts For Writing An Affidavit

When you are going by the law to get something, make sure you do not resort to false claims. Making false claims in an affidavit could lead to perjury. The main mission of an affidavit is to make sure you are only claiming the facts to the family court. Getting engaged in perjury could lead to serious consequences such as getting you arrested.

Make sure the content in your affidavit contains relevant facts that could speed up the process for you. If the court gets what it wants, then there are fewer chances of the process getting delayed. Therefore abide by the rules of the court when writing an affidavit.

One should refrain from referring to any information as “facts” if it has been received or collected from others. This will likely be considered as ‘hearsay evidence,” which can deteriorate your case or situation in the court.

Furthermore, one should also refrain from expressing their opinion when writing an affidavit. Unless one is a parenting expert, these opinions are not important to the court.

The final page of your affidavit should contain some important information as well. We are mentioning the content required below.

• Your registered full name with a signature

• Mention if the affidavit is affirmed or sworn

• Time and place of signing the affidavit

• The official full name, professional status, and signature of the approved individual present while the affidavit was being signed

Conclusion:

The process of writing an affidavit for family court should be quite clear to you now. This tells you that you do not really need a lawyer every time you want to file a document to the court. No one is indispensable in such situations, not even lawyers. You can write your own affidavit documents by following the provided format above.

The process of writing an affidavit is not a difficult one, but it does need a certain format, which you must follow for the court to approve your documents. So no more being dependent on court staff to file your documents. You can do it all by yourself.