How to Get an AVO in NSW: A Step-by-Step Guide

Something has already happened, or it has been building for a while, and you want to know what protection actually looks like and how to get it. The short answer is that there are two ways to get an AVO in New South Wales. The police can apply for one on your behalf, or you can apply yourself at your local court. Both routes end in the same place, an order made by a magistrate, and neither one costs you a filing fee.

An AVO, or apprehended violence order, is a court order that tells one person, the defendant, what they must not do, so that another person, the protected person (you will hear the courts and police call them the PINOP), is safe. The rules for making one sit in the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW).

Below is what to gather before you start, both routes step by step, what a court has to be satisfied of, and what happens after you apply.

What you need before you start

Have these ready. It makes the application faster and it makes it stronger.

• Your details and theirs. Full name, date of birth, address if you know it, and how you know each other.
• What happened, with dates. Write it out incident by incident, in order, in your own words. Not a summary. Dates, times, places, what was said and done.
• Anything that shows you fear for your safety. Threatening texts, voicemails, emails, social media messages, screenshots, photos of damage or injuries, a diary of incidents, names of anyone who saw or heard something.
• Whether police are already involved. Any event number, the station, the officer’s name, and whether a statement has already been taken.
• What you want the order to stop. Contact, approaches at home or work, being near the children’s school. This becomes the conditions you ask for.

Do not go back to a property or a person to collect evidence. Work with what you already have.

The two routes, step by step

Route 1: The police apply for you

This is the most common path, and for most people it is the right one. You do not pay for a lawyer to run it, and a police prosecutor presents the case at court.

1. Report it. Call 000 if you are in immediate danger. Otherwise call the Police Assistance Line on 131 444, or go to your local police station and ask for the domestic violence liaison officer (Communities and Justice).
2. Give a statement. Police take your account and collect what evidence is available, including your messages and photos.
3. Police apply. If they believe there are grounds, they apply to the Local Court for an apprehended domestic violence order. Two rules can take that choice out of everyone’s hands, and both are set out under “Who can apply for an AVO” below.
4. The application is served on the defendant so they know the date and what is being asked for.
5. Court. The first date is the mention. Your matter can be finalised that day if the defendant consents to the order, or adjourned if they do not, in which case the court sets a timetable for statements and lists it for a defended hearing (Legal Aid NSW).

People hesitate here because they assume police have bigger problems to deal with. That assumption is the wrong way round, and here is the scale of it.

Domestic violence now makes up 60% of all police work, and it means that police are getting one call every three minutes that’s got something to do with domestic violence.

You are not an interruption to their day.

Route 2: You apply yourself (a private application)

If police decide not to apply, or your situation does not involve police at all, you can make a private application.

1. Speak to the police first anyway. If they will apply, take that option. It costs you nothing to run.
2. Contact the registry of your local court. Courts run this differently. Some have an AVO kit or a form you fill in yourself; at others you make an appointment with the Registrar, who helps you apply. An interpreter can be arranged at no cost (Legal Aid NSW).
3. Set out the incidents and why you are afraid. Be specific and be accurate. Making a statement in the application that you know is false or misleading is an offence, and in a private apprehended personal violence order application it carries up to 12 months imprisonment, a fine of 10 penalty units (currently $1,100), or both (s 49A).
4. Sign and file it. There is no filing fee.
5. The application is served on the defendant.
6. Go to court on the mention date. Same fork as above: consent leads to a final order, disagreement leads to a defended hearing.

The Local Court of NSW sets out how it handles AVO lists. If you are on the other side of one of these applications, or you want an order that already exists lifted, that is a different question, and we cover it in defending an AVO, getting an ADVO removed and what happens at the court date.

ADVO or APVO: which one applies to you

Two names, two tests, and the difference between them is the relationship.

• ADVO, an apprehended domestic violence order, is for people in a domestic relationship: a partner, an ex-partner, a family member, someone you live with or have lived with.
• APVO, an apprehended personal violence order, is for everyone else: a neighbour, a colleague, someone from your building.

The conditions a court can impose are the same, and so is the standard of proof. What changes is the relationship, and with it the section of the Act the court applies. Which one you are applying for simply follows from how you know the other person.

Who can apply for an AVO

You can apply for yourself. Police can apply for you. Here’s the catch: two rules take that choice out of your hands.

• Where every person the order would protect is a child under 16, only a police officer can apply (s 48).
• Police must apply in certain situations, including where they suspect or believe a domestic violence offence has recently been or is being committed against you (s 49).

What you have to prove

To make an ADVO, the court has to be satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that you have reasonable grounds to fear and that you in fact fear a domestic violence offence, intimidation or stalking (s 16). A domestic violence offence is a personal violence offence committed against someone the offender is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with (s 11). Balance of probabilities means more likely than not. It is a lower standard than a criminal charge, which has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Two things sit inside that test that people miss. The first is that the court does not always have to be satisfied that you are actually afraid. Where the protected person is a child, that part of the test falls away, and the Act sets out a small number of other situations where it does too (s 16(2)). The second is that an APVO runs on its own test. For an APVO the court applies s 19: reasonable grounds to fear, and in fact fear, a personal violence offence, intimidation or stalking, with no domestic relationship needed.

Read that again, because it does not say what most people assume it says. A lot of people think you need to have been physically assaulted before an AVO can be made. That is not true. You do not need violence, and you do not even need threats. Repeated unwanted contact, messaging, calling, turning up at someone’s home, can be enough.

If you are unsure whether what you have been through meets that test, an AVO lawyer can tell you in one conversation rather than leaving you to guess at it.

What counts as evidence

This is where most people talk themselves out of applying, so let me deal with it directly. “I have no evidence” almost always means “I have no photos of injuries”. That is not the test.

An AVO can be granted for things like threats, intimidation, stalking, even something like sending text messages. So if you’re blowing up someone’s phone with messages and they’re feeling scared or harassed, that alone could be enough.

I acted for a man who could not believe the order was made against him. He had never laid a hand on the other person, and that part was true. The court granted the AVO anyway, on his threatening text messages and nothing else. Turn that around and look at it from your side: the messages sitting in your phone right now are not nothing. They may be the whole case.

So bring the messages, the call logs, the voicemails, the missed-call screenshots, the diary you kept, the neighbour who heard it. Your own account, given clearly and consistently, is evidence too.

What conditions an AVO can include

Every AVO carries the same standard prohibitions (s 36). The defendant must not assault or threaten you, must not stalk, harass or intimidate you, and must not deliberately or recklessly damage your property or harm your animals. Those protections extend to anyone you are in a domestic relationship with. On top of that, the court can add conditions to fit your situation, such as:

• No contact of any kind, directly or through anyone else.
• Staying away from where you live, work, or where the children go to school.
• Not approaching you within a set time after drinking alcohol or taking drugs.

Ask for the conditions you actually need. Think about handovers, shared workplaces and school pick-ups before you get to court, not after.

How long it takes

Timeframes are indicative, and they move with the court and the police workload:

• Service on the defendant: normally one to seven days.
• First court date: usually one to three weeks after the application is filed.

You are not unprotected while you wait. The court can make an interim order, which puts conditions in place straight away and runs until the matter is finished.

How long an AVO lasts

The court sets the period. Since the change on 28 March 2020, where the court does not specify a period, Communities and Justice gives the default as two years for an adult defendant, and one year where the defendant is under 18. A court can order a longer or shorter period if the circumstances call for it, and you can apply to extend an order before it expires.

What happens if the AVO is breached

An AVO is not just a piece of paper. Knowingly contravening one is a criminal offence carrying up to two years imprisonment, a fine of 50 penalty units (currently $5,500), or both (s 14).

If the defendant breaks a condition, report it to police, and keep the evidence: the message, the screenshot, the time and date. Our guide to breaching an AVO goes through how those charges are dealt with.

Does it cost anything to apply?

There is no court filing fee to apply for an AVO. If police apply for you, there is no legal cost to you at all, because the police prosecutor runs the case.

This is where a lot of people get caught out. If you make a private application and it is dismissed, the court can order you to pay the defendant’s legal costs (Legal Aid NSW). That is the real financial risk in going alone, and it is worth understanding before you file. Lawyer’s fees vary with how far the matter runs, and we break the numbers down in how much an AVO costs.

Your safety plan should not end at the courtroom door

An order changes what is lawful. It does not change what a person is capable of. Plan for both.

• Keep a copy of the order on your phone and give one to your workplace, your child’s school and a neighbour you trust.
• Change passwords, turn off location sharing, and check who still has access to shared accounts and devices.
• Record every attempted contact with the date, the time and a screenshot, even if it seems small.
• Know where you would go and what you would take if you had to leave quickly.
• Report every breach. A pattern only exists on paper if someone writes it down.

If you need support outside the legal process, 1800RESPECT is the national counselling and information service for domestic, family and sexual violence.

Your AVO checklist

Save this or print it.

1. Written timeline of incidents, with dates.
2. Screenshots and recordings of messages, calls and social media contact.
3. Photos of any injuries or property damage.
4. Names and contact details of anyone who saw or heard something.
5. Any police event number or officer’s name.
6. The list of conditions you want to ask for.
7. Decide your route: ask police to apply, or file a private application at the court registry.
8. Diarise the mention date and arrange time off work.
9. Tell the people who need to know: work, school, family.
10. Store the order where you can reach it, and report every breach.

Where to from here

Applying for an AVO is not complicated, but doing it well is the difference between an order that fits your life and one that leaves gaps in it. The conditions you ask for, the way your statement is written, and whether you go with police or on your own all shape the outcome.

Our team does this type of work every week. Book a free 10-minute call with our AVO lawyers and we will tell you which route fits your situation, what to ask the court for, and what to do this week. Call 1300 614 732 or send us a message. If you are in immediate danger, call 000 first.