A company, individual, or business that posts collateral—such as real estate or cash—as guarantee for a defendant who must show up in court is known as a bail bond agent. Due to financial limitations, many people are now unable to post bail for themselves, so in order to be freed, they may hire a bail bond agent to act as the guarantee.
After receiving a non-refundable fee, which is typically donated by the defendant’s friends or relatives, the agent will now post the bond. In any event, the agent may reward themselves with further collateral such as equities, technology, and jewelry if the defendant continues to withhold the payment in cash.
In the event that the defendant does not show up, the agent will agree to pay any balance due to the court. You will be better able to make judgments after being arrested if you are aware of how these agents work. Several crucial ideas to comprehend are listed below.
The Basics
In the US, there are more than 14,000 active bail bond agents. Most states will demand that each agent obtain a license before they are allowed to work on US soil. The license, however, can be used for property and casualty insurance rather than bonding. The applying agent must fulfill particular educational criteria in order to obtain this license.
While the agent pays the premium to the insurance company, the defendant is liable for the agent’s fee. If the defendant fails to show up for court and cannot be located, the bond agent is solely responsible for clearing the bond payment. There are agreements between several bond dealers and the courts requiring them to post a bond known as a blanket bond.
This bond will now disable the agent from depositing any property or cash to the court in case they have a new client. That technically means that if any of the agent’s clients fail to appear in court, the bond will pay the court.
How these agents plan to make sure you show up in court
To make sure the defendant does not fail to show up during trials at the court proceedings, the bail bond agent could ask the defendant to be checking in using their phone at regular times or just some monitoring in some way. For the defendants who are most likely to run, the agent may have to place a guard to watch the defendant’s every move.
In case the defendant fails to show up during trials, the court will be obliged to give out a bench warrant. In that case, the court will forfeit the defendant’s bail. The bail bond agent will now be tasked with hiring a bounty hunter to bring in the defendant, and in exchange, they will receive a certain percentage from the bail that was remitted to the court.
Limitations of bail bond agents
Some states have banned the practice of bonding for profit, such as Oregon, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Kentucky. Here the defendant is allowed by the court to produce 10 percent of the total amount asked as bail. Other jurisdictions will only allow commercial bail on limited grounds such as Nebraska and Maine.
