You posted bond, walked out of the Collin County jail, and somebody handed you a stack of paper telling you that you can’t go back to your own house. Your clothes are there. Maybe your kids are there. Your tools, your work truck, your medication.
Here’s what catches almost everyone: there are usually two separate orders keeping you out, not one. They come from the same courtroom on the same morning, they say similar things, and they come off in two completely different ways. Getting one lifted does nothing about the other.
I’ve been practicing criminal defense in Collin County since 2013, and this is the call I get more than any other in the first week of an assault or family violence case. It’s a fixable problem in a lot of cases. It’s also the fastest way I know of to turn a manageable misdemeanor into a new felony charge, so read the rest of this before you do anything.
You’re Probably Under Two Orders, Not One
People use “bond conditions” and “protective order” as if they’re the same thing. They aren’t. Two different orders can be doing this to you at the same time, and you need to know which one you’re looking at before you can do anything about it.
When the magistrate set your bond, Article 17.40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure let them attach any reasonable condition related to the safety of the alleged victim or the community. In a family violence case, Article 17.49 specifically allows the magistrate to order you to stay away from a residence, school, or place of employment described in your bond paperwork, and to wear a GPS monitoring device. These conditions live in your bond papers, and they last as long as your case is pending.
This is a separate order, issued under Article 17.292 at your first appearance in front of a magistrate after the arrest. The magistrate can issue it on their own, or at the request of the alleged victim, the victim’s guardian, a peace officer, or the prosecutor. If the arrest involved serious bodily injury, or a deadly weapon was used or exhibited during an assault, the magistrate must issue one. You’ll hear it called an EPO, an emergency protective order, or a magistrate’s order for emergency protection.
They overlap, but they aren’t the same document, they don’t last the same length of time, and they don’t get changed the same way. If you only deal with one, you’re still locked out.
What an Emergency Protective Order Can Prohibit
Article 17.292 gives the magistrate a specific menu. An order can prohibit you from:
- Committing family violence or an assault against the protected person
- Communicating directly with the protected person, or with a member of their family or household, in a threatening or harassing manner
- Communicating a threat to them through any other person
- Communicating with them in any manner at all, if the magistrate finds good cause — with two exceptions: through your attorney, or through a person the court appoints
- Going to or near their residence, place of employment, or business
- Going to or near the residence, child care facility, or school where a protected child lives or goes
- Possessing a firearm, unless you’re a peace officer actively employed as a full-time paid officer
- Tracking or monitoring their property or vehicle without their consent — including a tracking app on their phone, a tracking device, physically following them, or having somebody else follow them
The magistrate can also order GPS monitoring, and can arrange for the protected person to carry a receptor device that alerts them if you come near a location you’ve been ordered to stay away from.
Two consequences people don’t see coming. If the order suspends your license to carry a handgun, the court sends it straight to DPS in Austin, which records the suspension, notifies local law enforcement, and demands you surrender the license — worth reading alongside how Texas weapons charges work. And if the order conflicts with an existing custody or visitation order, the emergency protective order wins for as long as it’s in effect. A family court order giving you possession of your children does not override it.
How Long These Restrictions Last
The emergency protective order has a fixed life. It takes effect the moment it’s issued, and under Article 17.292 it runs:
- Not less than 61 days, up to 91 days — the standard order
- Not less than 91 days, up to 121 days — if the arrest involved the use or exhibition of a deadly weapon during an assault
Your bond conditions have no expiration date at all. They last as long as your case is pending, through every setting, every reset, and every subsequent proceeding on the charge.
This is where I see good people get arrested a second time. They count the days, watch the emergency protective order lapse, and go home — not realizing the no-contact condition on their bond was a separate order that never expired and is still fully in force. The protective order running out doesn’t give you anything back.
How an Emergency Protective Order Actually Gets Changed
It can be changed. There’s a real procedure for it, and it’s written into the same statute that created the order.
Under Article 17.292, after notice to each affected party and a hearing, the court that issued the order may modify all or part of it — but only if the court finds all three of these:
- The order as originally issued is unworkable
- The modification will not place the victim at greater risk than the original order did
- The modification will not in any way endanger a person protected under the order
“Unworkable” is where the actual work happens. It’s not a magic word — it’s something you have to show the court with specifics. An order that bars you from the only residence you have, or that’s written broadly enough to cut off your route to work, or that covers a house the protected person has already moved out of, is a different conversation than a bare request to go home because you’d rather be there.
Notice the statute requires notice to each affected party and a hearing. The protected person gets told, and gets a chance to be heard. What they want carries real weight as evidence — but it isn’t the test, and this is where a lot of what you’ll read online is simply wrong.
There’s a detail in that statute that makes this concrete. A peace officer investigating a violation is prohibited from arresting the person the order protects. So if your spouse asks you to come home and you go, they face nothing at all. You’re the only person in that house who gets arrested. Getting back in your home has to come from the court, and only from the court.
Changing Your Bond Conditions Is a Separate Motion
Modifying the emergency protective order does nothing to your bond conditions. That takes its own motion, in front of whichever court currently has your case.
Where that motion gets heard depends on timing. If it’s heard before the case has been filed — which is most of the time, because this comes up in the first weeks — the magistrate court hears it. Once the case has been filed, the court where your case is pending hears the motion and conducts the hearing.
The court also has separate authority under Article 17.09 to order a new bond entirely, in whatever amount it thinks proper, for good and sufficient cause. That’s a different tool for a different problem, but it’s part of the same conversation about what your release actually looks like while the case is open.
If both orders are in place, both have to be dealt with. Fixing one and assuming the other came off with it is how people end up back in custody. For how bond gets set and what else can be attached to it, I’ve written separately about conditions of bond in Collin County.
Two Separate Things Happen If You Violate
Violating one of these isn’t a single problem. It’s two, and they run on separate tracks.
Your bond gets revoked
Article 17.40 gives you a hearing limited to one question: did you violate the condition? The standard there is preponderance of the evidence — more likely than not. That’s far below the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard that applies to the charge itself, which is exactly why the State likes this hearing.
And if the court makes that finding, revocation isn’t discretionary. The statute says the magistrate shall revoke the bond and order you immediately returned to custody. Your sureties are discharged from future liability at that point, which in plain terms means your bondsman is done and you’re the one sitting in jail.
You pick up a brand new criminal charge
Knowingly or intentionally violating a bond condition or an emergency protective order is its own offense under Penal Code Section 25.07. The conduct that counts includes committing family violence, threatening or harassing communication, passing a threat through another person, any communication at all where the order bars all communication, going to or near the residence, workplace, or a protected child’s school as described in the order, possessing a firearm, tampering with a GPS monitor, and tracking the protected person’s vehicle or property.
It also includes harming, threatening, or interfering with the care or custody of a pet, companion animal, or assistance animal in the protected person’s possession. Going back for the dog is a violation. Most people have no idea that’s in there.
The punishment range moves depending on the facts:
- Class A misdemeanor — the baseline
- State jail felony — if you committed the violation while possessing a deadly weapon
- Third degree felony — if you have two or more prior convictions under this section or Section 25.072, or if the violation itself was an assault or the offense of stalking
And if the same conduct is also an offense under another section of the Penal Code, the State can prosecute you under both. That’s how a Class A misdemeanor assault turns into two cases. I’ve written more about how these get charged and defended on my page covering protective order violations.
Mistakes I See in the First Two Weeks
Almost every violation I’ve dealt with came out of one of these, and none of them were malicious.
- Going back for your things. Clothes, tools, a laptop, medication, the dog. Every one of those is a reason people give me for why they went to the house, and every one of them is a violation. There are ways to ask the court to authorize a retrieval. Doing it yourself isn’t one of them.
- Answering a text they sent you. If your order bars all communication, there’s no such thing as a safe reply. It doesn’t matter who started it, and it doesn’t matter what it said.
- Sending a message through a relative. Where the order prohibits communication in any manner, the statute allows exactly two channels — your attorney, or a person the court appoints. Your brother is not one of them.
- Assuming the protective order expiring ended everything. It ended one of the two orders. Your bond conditions are still running.
- Waiting to bring it up. A modification needs a motion, notice to the other side, and a hearing setting. None of that happens the same week you ask for it, and every week you wait is another week out of your house.
Frequently Asked Questions About Assault Bond Conditions in Texas
Can I go home if my spouse says it’s okay?
No. Every emergency protective order is required to state in bold capital letters that no person, including the person protected by the order, can give permission to violate it. Penal Code Section 25.07 adds that reconciling or agreeing between yourselves doesn’t affect the order or an officer’s duty to enforce it. Only the court can change it — and an officer can’t arrest the protected person for the violation, only you.
How long do bond conditions and an emergency protective order last in Texas?
An emergency protective order under Article 17.292 runs at least 61 days and up to 91 days, or at least 91 and up to 121 days if the arrest involved the use or exhibition of a deadly weapon during an assault. Bond conditions are different — they have no expiration date and stay in force for as long as your case is pending.
Can I go back to the house to get my clothes and tools?
Not on your own. Going to or near the residence described in the order is exactly what the statute prohibits, and the reason you’re going doesn’t create an exception. The order can also cover a pet or assistance animal, so retrieving the dog counts too. The right move is to have your attorney ask the court to authorize a supervised retrieval.
What if the protective order expires but my case is still open?
Your bond conditions survive it. The emergency protective order and your bond conditions are two separate orders with two separate lifespans, and the no-contact and stay-away conditions attached to your bond continue until the case is resolved or a court changes them. Watching the protective order lapse and going home is one of the most common ways people get their bond revoked.
Can I still see my kids if the order covers my house?
Not automatically, and an existing custody order won’t help you. Where an emergency protective order conflicts with a court order granting possession of or access to a child, the protective order controls for as long as it’s in effect. Getting access restored means going back to the court that issued the order and asking for a modification.
How long does it take to change bond conditions in Collin County?
Usually about two to three weeks after the motion is filed. Which court hears it depends on timing: if the motion is heard before the case has been filed, the magistrate court hears it, which is how most of these start; once the case is filed, the court where your case is pending hears the motion and holds the hearing. I handle assault and family violence cases throughout Collin County and offer a free consultation — reach out and we can talk through what’s realistic in your situation.
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