What This Statute Says
This section gives the conciliation petition real teeth. Filing a petition triggers a sixty-day stay during which no spouse can move forward with a divorce, separation, or annulment, and any divorce case already filed gets paused and transferred.
A. During a period beginning on the filing of a petition for conciliation and continuing until sixty days after the filing of the petition for conciliation, neither spouse shall file any action for annulment, dissolution of marriage or legal separation, and, on the filing of a petition for conciliation, proceedings then pending in the superior court are stayed and the case shall be transferred to the conciliation court for hearing and further disposition as provided in this article. All restraining, support, maintenance or custody orders issued by the superior court remain in full force and effect until vacated or modified by the conciliation court or until they expire by their own terms.
A.R.S. § 25-381.18When This Statute Comes Into Play
The stay matters when:
- One spouse files a conciliation petition to slow down a divorce the other spouse intends to file.
- An action for divorce, separation, or annulment is already pending and one spouse wants to attempt conciliation.
- Restraining orders or other temporary protective orders need to continue during the conciliation window.
What This Means for Arizona Families
The sixty-day stay is the single most consequential procedural feature of the conciliation article. It buys time for the parties to actually attempt reconciliation rather than rushing through divorce paperwork. It also pulls pending divorce actions into the conciliation court so the reconciliation effort and the dissolution paperwork are handled together, not in parallel.
Reconciliation is rare once a divorce filing is on the table, but the Court of Conciliation has helped many Arizona couples either repair the marriage or part on better terms. Either result has estate-planning consequences. Our FAQ on how divorce affects your Arizona estate plan covers the updates that follow a finalized dissolution; if you reconcile, the same plan needs a different review. The Arizona community property presumption and any premarital agreement the spouses signed both shape what is on the table during conciliation. An Arizona family law attorney working with an estate planning attorney can keep the two tracks coordinated regardless of which way the petition resolves.