Signing is not the finish line. After the Joint Petition and Personal Data Sheet are correctly completed, the next major step is filing them with the correct New Hampshire Circuit Court Family Division.
What that means without the legal-sounding words
Once the court accepts the filing, keep the case number and move into the required financial-disclosure work. The article I Filled Out My Forms—What Do I Do Next? walks through that handoff.
Keep your spouse's role separate from your own: each person should use their real legal name, current address, and their own signature. In the context of “What Happens After Both Spouses Sign a Joint Petition?,” that means you should stop and verify the specific fact discussed above before moving into the next divorce step.
Example: You and your spouse sign on Friday night. Nothing automatically goes to the court. Until someone actually files the packet, there is no filed divorce case merely because the signatures exist.
What I would do next
- Step 1: Check every page for missing blanks and incomplete notary sections.Keep this answer with your notes for “What Happens After Both Spouses Sign a Joint Petition?” so the same information is used later.
- Step 2: Make a clean copy.For this part of “What Happens After Both Spouses Sign a Joint Petition?,” use the current official court wording rather than copying somebody else's old case.
- Step 3: Submit the starting packet to the correct Family Division.After this part of “What Happens After Both Spouses Sign a Joint Petition?” is done, save a copy or record the date so you know you really completed it.
- Step 4: Pay the current filing fee or follow the current fee-waiver process.If this fact changes while you are working through “What Happens After Both Spouses Sign a Joint Petition?,” update your case notes before creating the final paperwork.
- Step 5: Save the receipt and case number.This piece of “What Happens After Both Spouses Sign a Joint Petition?” deserves a second look at names, dates, and addresses before you continue.
- Step 6: Start the financial disclosure timeline.If you are uncertain about this part of “What Happens After Both Spouses Sign a Joint Petition?,” verify the fact before signing anything that says the information is true.
Where people usually go wrong
- Putting signed papers in a drawer and assuming the divorce started.
- Mailing to the wrong court.
- Forgetting the Personal Data Sheet.
- Waiting for a court case number before actually filing.
How this connects to another part of the divorce
For submission methods, read How to Submit Divorce Papers in NH. For the money due at filing, see the filing-fee article.
For this specific question—“What Happens After Both Spouses Sign a Joint Petition?”—the thing to carry into the next screen or form is the fact you just confirmed. Write that fact down in ordinary words first. Then copy it carefully into the official paperwork only where the form actually asks for it. That keeps one misunderstood label from spreading into several later documents.
Check the official source for this topic: NH Judicial Branch Family Division ↗How to know when you can move on
You are finished with the issue covered by “What Happens After Both Spouses Sign a Joint Petition?” when you have done two things: (1) you can confidently check every page for missing blanks and incomplete notary sections, and (2) you know that the next checkpoint is to start the financial disclosure timeline. If either part is still fuzzy, keep this page open and verify that one point before signing, notarizing, paying, or filing anything.
Let the site organize the next part
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Start my free case check →General-information note for this page: This page about “What Happens After Both Spouses Sign a Joint Petition?” is general New Hampshire legal information, not advice about what you personally should agree to. FreeDivorceNH.com is a self-help technology and document-assistance service, not a law firm. Because court forms, fees, filing locations, and procedures can change, use the official New Hampshire Judicial Branch link on this page to confirm any detail that could have changed.