Section 25-5B.Automatic Orders upon Filing of Joint Petition—Nonadversarial Divorce

Connecticut’s nonadversarial divorce is a joint filing with no defendant, so its automatic orders attach to both petitioners at once, on the filing of the joint petition, and remain until further order of a judicial authority. As elsewhere, an automatic order does not apply where a judge has already made a contradictory one.

Neither petitioner may sell, transfer, assign, remove or dispose of property without the other’s written consent or a court order, except in the usual course of business, for customary household expenses, or for reasonable attorney’s fees; conceal property; encumber property on the same terms; move a jointly held asset into their sole name; incur unreasonable debts, including further encumbering assets or unreasonably using credit cards or cash advances; remove the other petitioner from medical, hospital or dental insurance; or change life insurance beneficiaries or let the existing life, automobile or renters policies lapse. If the petitioners are living together when the orders take effect, neither may deny the other the use of the current primary residence without a court order.

The financial disclosure is tighter here than in a contested case: the petitioners complete and exchange sworn financial statements on the prescribed form and file the statement with the joint petition itself, and may then submit a stipulated interim order allocating income and expenses.

The orders must be attached immediately after the joint petition, in bold letters, with the contempt warning and the statement of the right to a hearing before a judge within a reasonable time, and the clerk may not accept a joint petition that omits them.