All Things Bail Bonds

10% backed by a promise to pay the rest if you do not appear. A bondsman routinely will ask for a clear deed to property to post the amount for a client. So the barbers shop was prob. put up against the bond w/ 10K money put in

There are a number of ways to post bail.

The simplest (and cheapest, if you have the money) is to just give the court the money. So if the court says $100,000 bail, you give the clerk $100,000, and you’re good to go. Show up for court as required, and you get your $100,000 back.

The most common, though, is to use a bail bondsman. If the court says $100,000 bail, you give a bail bondsman $10,000 and promise to pay him the other $90,000 if you skip. He promises to pay the $100,000 to the court if you skip, and they release you. However, even if you show up for court as required, you do NOT get your $10,000 back - that is, as it were, an insurance premium - it’s gone for ever. In most cases the bondsman will also want some sort of collateral from you - the deed to a house, or a promise to be liable from a rich relative, something like that.

The third way is a property bond. It’s a little more complex, but it saves you the bondsman’s fee. The court may declare your bail to be “$100,000 cash, or $500,000 property”. If you (or a friend or relative) owns real estate with a net value of over $500,000 then the deed can be signed over as a bond to the court. If you show up as required the owner gets the deed back, if you don’t then the State gets the property.

Richard

A bail bond is like an insurance policy, that you purchase. You pay a premium, to the bondsman, and if you don’t go to court he owes the amount of the bail to the court. Usually the bonding company charges about 10%, but they are sometimes allowed to charge more.

In most states the bonding company can bring you to court to relive themselves of the obligation to pay the bail, that is where bounty hunters come in.