eSearch

This service provides the public with 24/7 access to information from Provincial and Supreme civil court files and Provincial traffic and criminal court files in British Columbia.

Provincial and Supreme Civil Court Files and Court of Appeal Files

For a $6.00 fee, you can view the details of one of the files located by your search. Access is based on publicly available information. Some files may offer you only limited information and in some cases none at all.

Some court documents are also available within eSearch as a result of eFiling and scanning practices. For an additional fee, users may download copies of those documents which are electronically available or purchase copies of documents not available in electronic format by using the document request link.

Provincial Traffic and Criminal Court files

You can view details of the Provincial traffic and criminal court files in your search results. You can refine your search to narrow down the results before choosing a file to view. Access is based on publicly available information. Some files may offer you only limited information, and in some cases, none at all. There is no ability to view specific court documents within the traffic/criminal eSearch service.

For general information about eSearch and how to use this service, go to About CSO. You can also check out our FAQs and the Schedule of Fees.

Search Tips

We have provided a number of general tips for the use of our search. The search service requires you to select the method of search from one of the offered methods (e.g. by party name, by file number). After you select the method of search you will be required to enter information in order for us to attempt to locate your file of interest. The more information you provide the better our system can assist you in finding your file of interest. You must keep in mind that if you provide very little information, for example, “s” when searching by party name, the performance of your search will be negatively impacted.

Detailed information about each of the search methods and fields that you can search on is described below.

If you do not find the file you were looking for based on the search criteria you provided you will be able to refine the search. Refine search will return you to the search criteria page for the method of search that you selected. The criteria you previously provided will be displayed and you will have the opportunity to enter in new search criteria and re-execute the search. After re-executing the search, the search results page will be displayed and it will show you a list of all files that matched the criteria provided.

Searching For Individuals

When searching for individuals you must provide all or part of the Last Name and optionally you can provide a First Name and Middle Name. If you provide a First Name and Middle Name, then the system will only find parties that match all of the name(s) provided. If the party name is different in the court file then the system may not return you any results.

For names with an apostrophe, type in the apostrophe.
For example: O’Doul, O’Brien

For names with a hyphen or periods, type in the hyphen.
For example: St. Denis or St Denis, Saint-Bertrand or Saint Bertrand

Searching For Organizations

When searching for a business or organization, you can type in the full name or the first part of the name. The system will return you all organizations that start with the words you provided. The system will also return you any files that have an "also known as" organization name attached to any of the parties on the file.

For example: Entering “Brady Fish“ (without the quotes) will return results such as Brady Fish and Chips, Brady Fishing Expeditions Ltd., Brady Fish Restaurant. This will NOT return The Brady Fish Market or Frank Brady Fish Company.

The system will search all organization names including any other name types names (e.g. doing business as, also known as name) and any legal representative names that have been entered against the court file. All files that match the supplied criteria will be displayed in the search results.

For numbered corporations you can use only the number. You must make sure you are putting in any space if one exists in the number. The system will only return an exact match.
For example: 348 219 OR if there are no spaces 897654

Search by Both

If you are unsure if the party name is an individual or an organization, then we recommend that you use "search by both" method. In the search by both method, you can only enter a party surname or organization name. You can not enter a first name or middle name for this type of search.

Search by Both, will return a match if the party surname or organization name in the court file matches the supplied search name. The search will search all party name/organization name types including any other names or legal representative names. All files that match the supplied criteria will be displayed in the search results.

Searching by File Number

If you are searching by file number we require an exact match to the file number you are attempting to locate.

Provincial and Supreme Civil File Numbers

For provincial and supreme courts this consists of 4 components. Each component is separated by a “-” dash.

The following example explains this numbering system.

Example: VLC-S-S-04345678

• VLC — 3 letters representing one of the court registry locations. This is optional.
• S — 1 letter representing the level of Court (Supreme or Provincial). This is optional.
• S — 1 letter representing the class of the court filing (e.g. general, motor vehicle, bankruptcy). This is optional.
• 04345678 — up to 13 digits or characters representing the file number. This is mandatory

You must enter the last set of digits in order to locate your file, all other components are optional. You will notice that each part of the file number has been represented as a separate field on the search screen.

Location

You can filter your search to only locate files in a specific registry location. You can select a registry location from the drop down list of values. The short form description and long description both appear in the drop down list of values (e.g. VLC — Vancouver Law Courts). Leaving the location field(s) blank is the equivalent of searching ALL registry locations.

If you enter a registry location, the system will return all files that match the other criteria AND are within the registry location you provided.

Class

You can filter your search to only locate files that are within a specific civil classification. Civil File classes that are associated with a court level (Provincial, Supreme). The file classes include:

For Level — Provincial

• Enforcement/Legislated Statute
• Motor Vehicle Accidents
• Small Claims

For Level — Supreme

• Bankruptcy
• Caveat
• Divorce
• Enforcement/Legislated Statute
• Family Law Proceedings
• Foreclosure
• Motor Vehicle Accidents
• Probate
• Supreme Civil (General)

You can select a class from the drop down list of values. The long description of the class appears in the drop down list of values. Leaving the class field(s) blank is the equivalent of searching ALL classes of files.

If you enter a class, the system will return all files that match the other criteria AND are within the class you provided.

For example, surname is 'Smith' and class of 'Motor Vehicles'. The system will return any matching files where the Surname is "Smith" AND the file class is "Motor Vehicles". It will not return any files where Surname is "Smith" and the class is other than Motor Vehicles (for example, civil general, divorce, bankruptcy).

Note: If a level is selected the drop down list of values will contain values that are appropriate to the level you selected.

Level

You can filter your search to only locate files that are within a specific civil level. Civil File levels are Provincial, Supreme. If you are looking for a Court of Appeal file you must use the Court of Appeal Search. Court of Appeal files will not show as a level within this method of search.

You can select a level from the drop down list of values. Leaving the level field(s) blank is the equivalent of searching ALL levels (Supreme & Provincial) files.

If you enter a level, the system will return all files that match the other criteria AND are within the level you provided.

For example, surname is 'Smith' and level of 'Provincial'. The system will return any matching files where the Surname is "Smith" AND the level is "Provincial". It will not return any Supreme files.

Date

You can optionally enter a date range when the file was opened. This will further filter your other search criteria to only find files that were initiated (date opened) in the date range you provided.

Search by Party Name

Search by Deceased Name

Search by File Number

Search by Date Range