Family Court Act § 216-c · Part 1. Administration
Preparation of petitions
Text — Law content up to date as of August 21, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 216-c. Preparation of petitions. (a) Whenever a petitioner is not represented by counsel, any person who assists in the preparation of a petition shall include all allegations presented by the petitioner.
(b) No clerk of the court or probation officer may prevent any person who wishes to file a petition from having such petition filed with the court immediately.
(c) If there is a question regarding whether or not the family court has jurisdiction of the matter, the petition shall be prepared and the clerk shall file the petition and refer the petition to the court for determination of all issues including the jurisdictional question.
(d) This section shall not be applicable to juvenile delinquency proceedings.
Source of truth
- Edition
- Law content up to date as of August 21, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
- Official file
- https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/FCT216-C
- Text hash
- sha256 3ddbfd3e78c48d2abf3954a92508a0524c65cc747a8b2ecb49b95155d2375e06
- Composed by
- gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.