Yes, you can tell someone to get off your property, and a plain verbal statement is legally enough in every state. Once you clearly revoke their permission to be there, staying becomes criminal trespass, and police can remove them. The right is broad but not unlimited: tenants with a lease, co-owners, officers with a warrant, and customers at a public-facing business each sit in categories where different rules apply.
How to Tell Someone to Leave
You don’t need a lawyer, a form, or any particular phrasing. What the law cares about is clarity. The person has to understand that their permission to be on the property is gone and that they need to go. Something like “You need to leave my property now” does the job. Skip the argument about why. Your reason isn’t legally required, and debating it only clouds the record if things escalate.
A witness helps. If the person later claims no one ever asked them to leave, a witness ends that defense on the spot. Alone? Record the exchange on your phone. Most states let you record a conversation you’re part of, though a few require every party to consent to audio. Video without sound, taken on your own property, is generally fine.
Renters have the same authority here that owners do. If you pay rent and live there, you control who comes inside, and even your landlord generally can’t enter without proper notice outside an emergency.
When a Written No-Trespass Notice Makes More Sense
If the problem is ongoing, or you want a paper trail before it escalates, put it in writing. Send a no-trespass letter by certified mail with a return receipt. Identify the property by address, state that the recipient is not welcome, and warn that returning will result in criminal trespass charges. Keep it short and factual.
Many police departments will accept a copy for their records. If the person shows up again, you call police, reference the filed notice, and the responding officers already have documentation that the person was warned. Enforcement gets faster and any later prosecution gets simpler.
What Happens if They Refuse to Leave
Once you’ve clearly asked them to go and they stay, they’re trespassing. Don’t try to push them out yourself. Call police, identify yourself as the owner or tenant, and say you asked the person to leave and they refused. Officers will respond and either talk the person out or escort them off.
Criminal trespass is typically a misdemeanor, with penalties that vary a lot by state. Jail exposure for a simple trespass conviction can run anywhere from 30 days to a year depending on jurisdiction and circumstances, and fines vary just as widely. Aggravating factors — trespassing into a home, trespassing while armed, or returning after a prior written warning — can push the charge to a higher misdemeanor or, in some states, a felony.
In many places, the responding officer can also issue a formal no-trespass warning on the spot at your request. That warning goes into department records and puts the person on official notice, which makes any future charge easier to prove. Ask whether it’s available where you are, because the process differs by department.
People You Cannot Simply Order Off
The right to exclude is strong but has real edges. Several categories of people have legal footing that overrides a verbal order to leave.
Tenants With a Lease
A tenant paying rent under a lease has a legal right to occupy the property, and your feelings about it don’t change that. You can’t lock them out, cut utilities, or move their belongings to the curb. Removal requires a formal eviction: written notice, a waiting period, a hearing, and a court order. Shortcut attempts expose you to liability for an illegal eviction, including damages and attorney fees.
Co-Owners
If someone else is on the title with you, they have the same right to be there that you do. One co-owner can’t unilaterally exclude another. Resolving that means negotiation or a court action to partition the property.
Officers and Officials With a Right of Entry
Police executing a valid warrant have a legal right to enter and stay. Utility workers and government inspectors operating under an easement or statutory access right can enter designated areas for specific purposes, like reading a meter or maintaining a line. You can’t trespass them.
Customers at a Business or Applicants for a Rental
This is where owners get themselves in serious trouble. If your property operates as a business open to the public, federal law forbids ejecting someone because of race, color, religion, or national origin. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues, and similar establishments.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 2000a – Prohibition Against Discrimination or Segregation in Places of Public Accommodation The Americans with Disabilities Act adds disability for commercial establishments. You can remove someone for being disruptive, breaking your rules, or any other legitimate non-discriminatory reason. But if the actual motivation is a protected trait, federal civil rights liability follows.
For rental housing, the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination against tenants and applicants based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 3604 – Discrimination in the Sale or Rental of Housing Many state and local laws go further. Your right to exclude someone from a private residence is nearly absolute; the moment the property functions as a business or a rental, anti-discrimination rules kick in.
Using Force to Remove Someone
Most states allow non-deadly physical force to remove a trespasser when you reasonably believe it’s necessary. Deadly force is almost universally off-limits for simple trespass alone. The catch is that “reasonable” gets judged after the fact by people who weren’t there. Shove someone, they fall, they break a wrist, and you can be looking at assault charges or a civil suit even though they were trespassing.
Courts weigh proportionality. Someone arguing with you in the driveway is not the same threat as someone forcing entry into your home, and the law expects your response to reflect that. When police are a phone call away, physical force almost never pencils out. Waiting ten minutes for officers is cheaper than a criminal case against you.
Your Liability Toward Trespassers
Owning the property doesn’t give you a free hand to hurt people who enter without permission. The duty of care you owe a trespasser is lower than what you owe an invited guest, but it isn’t zero.
No Traps or Rigged Hazards
Booby traps, spring guns, and similar devices are off the table. Injuring an intruder with a pre-set trap exposes you to criminal charges and a civil suit for medical costs and other damages. The law draws a hard line between defending yourself in the moment and rigging the property to hurt someone when you aren’t there. If you know trespassers frequent the property and you deliberately create hidden dangers, you own whatever happens.
The Attractive Nuisance Doctrine
Children get a heightened duty. Under the attractive nuisance doctrine, recognized in most states, you can be held liable for injuries to trespassing children caused by dangerous features on your property if those features are the sort of thing that draws children in. Swimming pools, construction equipment, and abandoned appliances are the classic examples. Courts look at whether you knew children were likely to come onto the property, whether the danger was one a child wouldn’t appreciate, and whether reasonable steps could have removed the risk. Fencing a pool or locking a shed may be all that’s required; ignoring it can make you financially responsible for a child’s injury.
Repeat Trespassers and the Clock You Don’t Want Running
One incident is a nuisance. A pattern is a threat to your property rights themselves, and dealing with it early matters more than most owners realize.
If someone keeps returning after verbal and written warnings, escalate. File a copy of your no-trespass letter with local police so that each return visit is documented from the moment officers arrive. Each repeat after a formal warning strengthens the criminal case and shows the pattern courts want to see before imposing stiffer penalties.
When criminal charges alone aren’t deterring the person, petition a court for a civil restraining order or injunction barring them from the property. The process usually means filing a petition, attending a hearing where you present evidence of the repeated trespass, and getting a court order. Violating it adds contempt on top of the trespass. Filing fees for civil injunctions generally run from around $200 to $400 depending on the court, with fee waivers available in many jurisdictions.
Adverse Possession: Why Ignoring It Is Dangerous
Allowing someone to occupy part of your land long enough can hand them legal ownership of it. Adverse possession exists in every state. The occupier has to use the land openly, exclusively, continuously, and without your permission for a set number of years. Statutory periods vary but typically fall between five and twenty.
The elements are hard to meet, but the way owners lose is by doing nothing. Sending a written no-trespass notice, calling police, or filing a lawsuit interrupts the clock. If a neighbor is regularly parking on your land, maintaining a garden on it, or using a corner of your lot as their own, act now. Delay is what turns a trespass into a claim.