All Things Bail Bonds

A bond is an amount of money which is posted by friends and/or a bondsman to get you out of jail. If you show up at your court hearing, your get your bond money back (if you posted your bond in cash), or the bondsman gets his money back if he/she posted it for you.
IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE ASSN THEY WILL PUT UP UP TO $500 IN BOND MONEY FOR YOU. TURN THE CARD OVER AND CALL THE NUMBER ON IT.
The way you post a bond is by doing one of the following:

1. You and your friends raise enough cash to post the bond, go to the jail or courthouse to deliver it, get a receipt (and God, don’t lose that receipt!!) and then stepdad gets out of jail. Stepdad will then get a court date. If he shows up, you all get your bond money back. If he does not show up, you lose your money, so don’t bond him out of jail if you think he is going to skip town b/c you will be out of pocket for that. If you can’t post the bond, you can use a bondsman.

2. You go to a bondsman. Call the bail bondsman to be sure, but here in Florida you would put up 10% of the bond in cash. If his bond is $10,000, you would have to come up with $1,000 in cash (and you may have to go to a bank to get a loan or a pawn shop to pawn things or sell his car to get it). Once you come up with 10% of the bond money, the bondsman will post the whole bond for you (meaning he or she puts up the other 90% of the bond for you or his own $9,000 is put w/ yours) BUT to get him or her to do that, you have to collateralize it, which means you give him something of value which you agree to give up (like a car, etc.) if stepdad doesn’t show up at court for his next hearing. At this point, stepdad gets bonded out and he is given a court date when he has to show up in court. If he shows up, 100% of the bond money is returned to the bondsman who keeps your 10% payment in exchange for the risk he/she took bonding you out. If stepdad does not show up in court, the bondsman forfeits the bond (the $10,000, $1,000 of which you gave him in cash) and he must sell the collateral you gave him to recover the other $9,000 he just lost.

Hope that helps.

If all you’re doing is finding someone for him to use, you’re just hooking the two of them together. It will be up to your father in law to put up the value of his assets to secure the bond. (It’s basically a loan to get him out of jail, the bailbondman makes 10% above what he puts up.)

If he owns all of those items outright, the BB man will have him give up the titles to cover the note.

DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING!! If you co-sign the bond, you’re on the hook for the “loan” if he skips and misses his court dates. Just get him some phone numbers and back away, quickly!