Served with a statement of claim in Ontario? What to do in the first 20 days

Court papers arrive and the instinct is to set them down and deal with them later. Do the opposite. The clock started the day the documents reached you, and in Ontario it can run out in as little as 20 days. None of this requires panic. It does require you to act, and the first job is working out how much time you actually have.

Look at the first page. A document headed Statement of Claim and naming the Superior Court of Justice runs on one set of rules. A Plaintiff's Claim naming the Small Claims Court runs on another, with different forms, fees, and timelines. Ontario publishes an overview of both at ontario.ca↗.

Then write down the date you were served. Your deadline runs from service rather than from the date printed on the claim. Under rule 14.08 a Superior Court claim can be served up to six months after it is issued, so a document dated in February can land on your doorstep in July. Only the service date matters.

Rule 18.01 of the Rules of Civil Procedure↗ sets the time to serve and file a statement of defence in the Superior Court. Rule 3.01 does the counting: exclude the day you were served, include the last day, and if that last day is a weekend or holiday you get the next day that is not. The period itself turns on where you were when the papers reached you:

• Served in Ontario: 20 days.
• Served in another province or territory of Canada, or in the United States: 40 days.
• Served anywhere else outside Canada and the United States: 60 days.

You can buy time. Instead of the defence itself, serve and file a notice of intent to defend, Form 18B↗, within that period. Under rule 18.02 it entitles you to ten more days for the defence, so 20 becomes 30, 40 becomes 50, and 60 becomes 70. It is one page. You will find summaries online claiming it buys 40 days in total. It does not. The notice printed on the face of every Ontario statement of claim says ten more days.

There is a second way to get room, and it is the one defendants almost never ask about. Rule 3.02 lets the parties extend a time prescribed by the rules by filing a consent, and a plaintiff's lawyer will often agree to a few extra weeks for a defence if you ask before the deadline runs. Ask in writing, get the answer in writing, and file it. The same request made after you have been noted in default is a much harder conversation, and by then it is no longer the other side's decision alone.

In the Small Claims Court, which since October 1, 2025 hears claims up to $50,000, the defence is due within 20 days of service under rule 9.01 of the Rules of the Small Claims Court, and there is no notice of intent to defend. The court sets out the mechanics at ontariocourts.ca↗. Filing costs money either way: $77 for a Small Claims defence, $194 for a Superior Court statement of defence under the current civil court fee schedule↗.

Once your time runs out, the plaintiff can ask the registrar to note you in default under rule 19.01. There is no warning letter and nobody checks whether you meant to defend. Rule 19.02 sets out what follows: you are deemed to have admitted the allegations in the claim, you cannot take any step in the action except a motion to set the default aside, and apart from a few narrow exceptions you stop being entitled to notice of the steps anyone else takes. The lawsuit continues without you, on the plaintiff's version of the facts.

Default judgment follows. Where the claim is for a debt or a liquidated amount, the registrar signs judgment on paper under rule 19.04, with no judge and no hearing. For anything else the plaintiff moves for judgment under rule 19.05. Either way you end up with an enforceable judgment: garnished wages, frozen accounts, a writ of seizure and sale against your property, and an examination under oath about everything you own.

A default judgment can be set aside. Undoing one takes a motion, with sworn evidence and a court date. Under rule 19.08 the court weighs the factors from Mountain View Farms Ltd. v. McQueen: whether you moved promptly once you learned of the judgment, whether you have a plausible explanation for missing the deadline, whether you have an arguable defence on the merits, the prejudice to each side, and the effect on the administration of justice. A judge weighs those factors and can still refuse. Even a win usually comes with costs against you. In Small Claims the motion costs $127, per the Ontario guide on being sued↗. In the Superior Court the legal fees for that motion routinely exceed what preparing the defence would have cost.

1. 01Write the service date on the front page. Note how you were served and by whom. If service looks defective, raise it properly rather than sitting on the papers. A judge can cure irregular service. Nothing cures a missed deadline.
2. 02Read the whole claim, slowly. The relief sought sits in the first numbered paragraph: the dollar amount, the interest, the costs. What follows are the facts the plaintiff says entitle them to it. Check whether you are named personally, through a corporation, or both, which raises the question of when a corporation's owner is personally liable.
3. 03Stop deleting things. Emails, texts, photos, invoices, accounting records. Once a lawsuit exists you must preserve what is relevant to it, and destroying documents draws an adverse inference that hurts more than the documents would have.
4. 04Gather your file. Contracts, invoices and proof of payment, the full email and text history with the plaintiff, photographs, and dated notes of key conversations, in one folder in date order. Nothing else saves as much money at a first meeting.
5. 05Check your insurance. Details below. Do this on day one, not day fifteen.
6. 06Do not write to the plaintiff yet. An email meant to smooth things over reads differently marked as an exhibit two years later. What you say about what happened, what you owe, or what you would pay can all be used. Get advice first.
7. 07Book the advice inside the deadline. A lawyer who sees the claim on day four has options. One who sees it on day twenty-five is doing damage control.

Most defendants never think to look, and this is the step most likely to change what the lawsuit costs you. Liability coverage hides inside policies nobody thinks of as litigation insurance: home and tenant, auto, commercial general liability, directors and officers, errors and omissions, and sometimes an employer's policy where the claim arises out of your work.

The duty to defend is wider than the duty to pay. In Progressive Homes Ltd. v. Lombard General Insurance Co. of Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that an insurer must defend where the facts alleged in the pleadings, if proven, would fall within the policy. A mere possibility of coverage is enough, so an insurer can owe you a defence lawyer in a case it never pays a dollar on.

Two things have to happen. Report the claim to the insurer or broker immediately, because most policies require notice as soon as practicable and late notice is a live ground for denial. And send them the claim itself, since the pleading triggers the duty. A refusal is not the last word: there are real ways to push back on a denied claim, and coverage can be fought while the underlying lawsuit runs.

Small Claims is built to be usable without a lawyer. Paralegals can represent you, evidence rules are relaxed, and once the first defence is filed the court schedules a mandatory settlement conference within 90 days under rule 13.01. Costs exposure is capped: section 29 of the Courts of Justice Act limits an award, disbursements aside, to 15 per cent of the amount claimed unless the court finds it necessary to penalize unreasonable behaviour.

The Superior Court is heavier and the costs are not capped. Pleadings, sworn affidavits of documents, oral examinations for discovery that rule 31.05.1 caps at seven hours per party absent consent or a court order, mediation, a pre-trial conference, then trial. Mediation is mandatory in actions started in Toronto, Ottawa, and Essex County under rule 24.1, and money claims up to $200,000 run under the simplified procedure in rule 76↗, which shortens discovery, removes the jury, and caps the trial at five days.

Writing the defence is its own discipline. Rule 25.07 makes you work through the claim allegation by allegation and admit, deny, or plead that you have no knowledge of each one. Anything you leave unanswered counts as admitted. The same rule makes you plead any matter that would take the plaintiff by surprise, and that is where a limitation defence has to appear. Leave it out and you can lose the right to argue it at all.

A defence only answers the claim. Your own claim against the plaintiff belongs in a counterclaim under rule 27, delivered with the defence. Watch its limitation period: a counterclaim is a claim like any other, and under the Limitations Act, 2002 you generally have two years from when you knew you had it. A defendant who spends a year defending and only then remembers the money the plaintiff owes can find it has expired.

If a co-defendant is really the responsible one, that is a crossclaim under rule 28. If the responsible party has not been sued at all, a subcontractor, a supplier, a previous owner, that is a third party claim under rule 29. Both get decided at the pleadings stage and are awkward and expensive to fix later.

One option people miss sits on the face of the claim. Where it is for money only, paying the amount claimed plus the stated costs within the time for filing a defence lets you move to have the action dismissed. If the costs figure looks inflated, pay the claim plus $400 and have the costs assessed. On a modest claim you genuinely owe, that arithmetic sometimes beats two years of litigation.

Most civil claims settle, at mediation, at a settlement conference, at a pre-trial, or on the courthouse steps. Very few reach judgment after a trial, so the real question from day one is what a sensible resolution looks like and what it costs to get there. Costs are the pressure that drives it: in the Superior Court the loser normally pays a portion of the winner's legal fees, and a written offer to settle under rule 49 can shift who pays what from the date it was served. That is one of the few tools a defendant has to cap exposure, and it works only if the offer is drafted properly and made early.

Expect it to be slow. Rule 48.14 dismisses an action not set down for trial within five years, which tells you the pace the system assumes. A defended Small Claims matter can finish inside a year. A defended Superior Court action is measured in years, and the cost rises with every step past the pleadings. One caveat on the rules themselves. The Civil Rules Review↗ delivered its final report on December 15, 2025, proposing a rebuild of civil procedure that includes a three-track system and an earlier exchange of evidence. Almost none of that is law yet. The amendments that did come into force on February 1, 2026 changed where a proceeding can be started and which forms to use, and left the defence deadline and the default rules alone. Everything above is the law as it stands in August 2026.

A statement of claim is a private lawsuit. Someone wants money or another civil remedy from you, and the worst outcome is a judgment you have to pay. There is no arrest, no criminal record, and nothing that ends in jail. Criminal matters start with different paperwork, an appearance notice, undertaking, or summons, and the Crown has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. If that is what you are holding, read what happens between arrest and trial in Ontario instead.

The decisions that shape how a lawsuit ends get made in the first month: whether a defence goes in on time, whether a limitation defence gets pleaded, whether an insurer picks up your defence costs, and whether the counterclaim you are entitled to gets filed at all. That is where a lawyer earns the fee. If a claim has been served on you in the GTA or anywhere in Ontario, Telesh Law Firm Professional Corp can review it and tell you where you stand, and you can read more about how we handle civil litigation.

• Ontario courts
• Deadlines
• Step-by-step guide

This article is general information, not legal advice, and does not create a solicitor-client relationship. It is current as at its publication date and is not revised as the law changes. For advice on your specific situation, book a consultation or call 416-639-0887.

Written by

Caleesis Telesh

Founder & Principal Lawyer

LL.B. · B.A., York University · Member, Law Society of Ontario

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