Montgomery County Domestic Violence: Filing a Protective Order

To get a Montgomery County protective order, file a sworn petition at the District Court or Circuit Court in Rockville, the District Court in Silver Spring, or, when the courts are closed, at a District Court Commissioner’s office that operates 24 hours a day. There is no filing fee. A judge or commissioner reviews the petition the same day and, if there are reasonable grounds to believe abuse occurred, issues a temporary or interim order on the spot. A full hearing follows within about a week.

Where and When to File

During business hours, go to one of three courthouses: the District Court or Circuit Court in Rockville, or the District Court in Silver Spring. A clerk processes the paperwork and sends you to a courtroom for an immediate hearing with a judge.¹

If the abuse happens at night, on a weekend, or on a holiday, go to the District Court Commissioner’s office. Commissioners are available around the clock, every day of the year.² The commissioner can issue an interim protective order with most of the same protections a judge can order, including no contact, an order to vacate a shared home, temporary custody, and stay-away requirements for your workplace and your children’s school. An interim order lasts until the court holds a temporary order hearing, which must happen by the end of the second business day after the clerk’s office reopens.³

Who Qualifies

Maryland Family Law Section 4-501 limits domestic violence protective orders to people in specific relationships with the abuser. You qualify if you are a current or former spouse; someone who lives or lived with the abuser; a relative by blood, marriage, or adoption; a parent, stepparent, child, or stepchild of either party who lived with the abuser or the person seeking protection for at least 90 days in the past year; a vulnerable adult; a co-parent of the abuser’s child; or someone who had a sexual relationship with the abuser within the past year.⁴

One category stands apart: anyone who alleges the abuser committed rape or a sexual offense within the past six months can file, regardless of whether there was any prior relationship.⁴

“Abuse” under the statute covers acts that cause serious bodily harm, acts that put you in fear of imminent serious bodily harm, assault of any degree, sexual offenses, false imprisonment, stalking, and revenge porn.⁴

If Your Situation Doesn’t Fit

If the person who harmed you is a neighbor, coworker, acquaintance, or stranger with no qualifying relationship, you cannot get a protective order. Maryland offers a separate peace order for those situations. Peace orders are filed only in District Court, carry a filing fee and a service fee, must be filed within 30 days of the act, and cannot grant custody, financial support, or possession of a shared home.⁵

What the Petition Requires

The form is CC-DC-DV-001, “Petition for Protection from Domestic Violence.”⁶ You can pick it up at the clerk’s office or download it from the Maryland Courts website. It must be sworn under oath and include:⁷

A description of the abuse, with specific dates and locations where possible, and any history of prior injuries
Any previous or pending court cases between you and the abuser, including custody, divorce, or prior protective orders
A reliable address for the abuser so the Sheriff’s Office can serve the order
What you know about the abuser’s income and resources, if you are asking for emergency financial support

You can keep your own address off the paperwork. If disclosing it would put you at risk or reveal the location of a shelter, the statute lets you omit your address from every filed document. If the judge needs it for jurisdiction, you provide it orally and privately, and the court cannot share it with the abuser.⁷

Bring whatever you have to support your account: text messages, emails, voicemails, social media posts, photos of injuries, medical records, and police reports. Full printed message threads authenticate better than cropped screenshots.

What Happens After You File

The first hearing is ex parte, meaning the abuser is not present and you do not need to notify them. The judge decides whether there are reasonable grounds to believe abuse occurred. If so, the court issues a temporary protective order that can require the abuser to stop all contact, stay away from your home, workplace, and your children’s schools, vacate a shared residence, and give you temporary custody of your children. The temporary order lasts up to seven days, with the judge able to extend it.¹

No part of the order is enforceable against the abuser until they are served. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office handles service of domestic violence petitions and orders around the clock.⁸ An accurate address for the abuser keeps the process moving, because the final hearing cannot proceed until service is complete.

The Final Hearing

Once the abuser is served, the court schedules a final hearing, typically within seven days.⁹ Both sides can testify, present evidence, and call witnesses. The judge decides under a preponderance of the evidence standard: more likely than not that the abuse happened.¹⁰ If the abuser does not appear, the judge can issue the final order based on your testimony alone. Bring every piece of evidence you have. This is your one chance to build the full record.

What a Final Order Can Require

Under Section 4-506, a final protective order can include any combination of the following:¹¹

An order to stop all abusive or threatening behavior
No contact by phone, text, email, social media, or through third parties
Stay-away provisions covering your home, workplace, school, your children’s childcare, and family members’ homes
Exclusive use of a shared home; non-spouses must show their name is on the lease or deed, or that they lived there with the abuser for at least 90 days in the past year
Temporary custody of minor children, with visitation conditions that can include supervised visits or no visitation at all if your safety is at risk
Emergency financial support if the abuser has a legal duty to support you, enforced through automatic wage withholding
Temporary use of a jointly owned vehicle
Temporary possession of a pet
Surrender of all firearms for the duration of the order

Firearms surrender is mandatory in every final protective order, not something the judge chooses whether to include.¹¹ For temporary orders, firearm surrender is limited to cases where the abuser used or threatened a firearm, caused serious bodily harm, or threatened serious bodily harm.¹

How Long It Lasts and How to Extend It

A final order lasts for the period the judge specifies, up to one year. The maximum climbs to two years if the abuser was previously subject to a final protective order protecting the same person, the prior order lasted at least six months, and the new order is issued within one year after the prior one expired.¹¹

Before the order expires, you can file a motion to extend. A judge can grant a six-month extension for good cause. If the abuser commits a new act of abuse during the order’s term, or if the abuser consents, the extension can run up to two years from the date it is granted. The court weighs the severity of any new abuse, the history between you, any pending criminal charges, and the risk of injury. If you file an extension motion and the court cannot hold the hearing before the original order expires, the order automatically stays in effect until the hearing happens.¹⁰

If the Abuser Violates the Order

Call 911. Violating any term of an interim, temporary, or final protective order is a criminal misdemeanor, and an officer with probable cause to believe a violation occurred must make an arrest, with or without a warrant.¹² Officers do not have discretion to walk away.

Penalties for a first offense reach up to 90 days in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both. A second or subsequent offense carries up to one year in jail, a fine of up to $2,500, or both.¹²

Help Available in Montgomery County

The Montgomery County Family Justice Center, at 600 Jefferson Plaza, Suite 500, in Rockville, brings legal services, counseling, advocacy, and basic needs assistance into one secure building. All services are free, offered in any language, and open to anyone experiencing intimate partner violence who lives in Montgomery County or whose abuse happened there. There is no income requirement and no restriction based on immigration status.¹³ The center is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and the phone number is 240-773-0444. People under 16 need parental consent for services.

Several organizations offer free legal help with protective orders and related family law matters:¹⁴

Maryland Legal Aid Bureau
House of Ruth Domestic Violence Legal Clinic
Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse
Women’s Law Center
DC Volunteer Lawyers Project

If you are not sure where to start, the Family Justice Center coordinates with these organizations and can match you with the right one.

1
Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law 4-505 – Temporary Protective Order
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Montgomery County, Maryland. Protective Orders Montgomery County States Attorneys Office
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Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law 4-504.1 – Interim Protective Order
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Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law 4-501 – Definitions
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Maryland Courts. DC-PO-001 – Petition for Peace Order
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Maryland Courts. CC-DC-DV-001 – Petition for Protection from Domestic Violence
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Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law 4-504 – Petition
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Montgomery County, Maryland. Domestic Violence
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Maryland Courts. Domestic Violence 5 – Protective Order Hearings
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Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law 4-507 – Modification or Rescission
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Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law 4-506 – Final Protective Orders
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Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Family Law 4-509 – Failure to Comply with Protective Order
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Montgomery County, Maryland. Family Justice Center
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Montgomery County, Maryland. Domestic Violence and Other Crime Victims