How to File a Trespassing Restraining Order

The law protects your private property from many forms of entry and harassment. To enforce this privacy, you should know how to file a trespassing restraining order. Trespassing is a criminal act in which a person enters private property without permission. Once the court awards you a trespassing restraining order, the repeat offender will face criminal charges for entering your property.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Computer with Internet access
• Forms to request restraining order
• No Trespassing signs
• Documentation of a trespasser's behavior

Understand Your Rights

1. Learn your state's trespassing laws. Every state has its own version of a trespass statute, but most dictate that anyone you ask to leave your private property must do so under penalty of law.
2. Ask yourself if trespassers are aware they have breached your private property. You might erect a fence to prevent people from inadvertently walking across your property.
3. Know that if you wait too long to assert your property rights, the trespassers may win an easement, which will allow them to travel across your property forever. It usually takes 7 years to create an easement.

Take Action

4. Consider an appropriate restraining order. Civil restraining orders prevent stalking, harassment and other personal threats, while criminal restraining orders apply to trespassing and other abuses.
5. Visit your local district attorney's office to obtain a restraining order application. Some counties put these forms on their Web sites, and you usually can find them on a "Download Forms" tab (see Resources below).
6. Fill out the forms and submit them to the district attorney's office. Ask how you can protect your property while the court processess the restraining order.
7. Call the police every time the trespasser violates the restraining order and ignores your orders to leave the premises. A pattern of abuses will strengthen your case.
8. Seek support. If you need a restraining order to stop a stalker, visit the Stalking Resource Center of the National Center for Victims of Crime Web site (see Resources below).

Tips & Warnings

• Remember that you have the right to take action before your restraining order is granted. Any time intruders appear on your property, call the police to have them removed.
• Barriers are often the most effective way to deal with trespassers. Consider erecting a fence or wall around your property.
• Not every district attorney's office allows citizens to take out trespassing restraining orders online.