Give documents to court and parties to the case

File documents at court

You file documents at court when you give the court your application documents or when you respond to someone else’s application. Check with us if you’re not sure which forms and documents you need to file.

Make sure your forms are signed and dated before you file them at the court. Forms filled in on screen must be printed out before being signed and filed.

Some applications don’t charge a fee. If there’s a fee to file your application, you need to pay it when you file your documents.

Find out more about court fees

You can file documents by sending them by mail or handing them in at your local court. Sometimes you only have the option of handing them in at court. You’ll usually need to file any original documents and some copies.

You may be able to file your documents by email or through the File and Pay(external link) service.

Call us or ask staff at the court if you’re unsure

Serve documents on parties to the case

You’ll usually need to give a copy of the documents that you filed at court to the other people involved in the case. This is called serving documents.

Many forms ask for an address for service. This is the address that’s used to serve documents to someone.

Your lawyer can help you serve documents. Sometimes the court can help serve documents but there may be a fee.

You must serve your documents within a reasonable time and sometimes an affidavit of service needs to be filed at court to prove the documents were served to the other people.

Call us or ask staff at the court if you’re unsure

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