What Does Bailing Someone Out Of Jail Do?
Are you responsible for someone if you bail them out? What exactly is bail?
Bail is cash given to a court to free a person from custody until their court date. Once the defendant appears in court as scheduled, the money paid as bail is returned and repaid.
It is a monetary guarantee given to the court, ensuring that if someone is freed on this basis after being charged with a crime, they will appear in court again.
Options For Bail Bond
The following three choices are available if you or another person has been freed on bail:
- The defendant can afford the bond amount on their own.
- The offender has the option to stay in custody.
- The individual can merely engage a bail bondsman to assist in posting bail on their behalf.
How Are Bail Fees Calculated?
The judge may rule that a person must pay $10,000 to avoid going to jail until their court appearance. Most people can’t afford to pay for it out of pocket, so they hire a bail bondsman, who pays the entire cash sum and charges a percentage fee of the total bail amount, typically around 10%.
Therefore, a bail bondsman would charge $1,000 to pay the bail if the bail bond was $10,000.
If you’ve paid someone else’s bail to get them out of jail, you either paid the total bail money to the jail agency to cover the bail amount or you contacted a bail bondsman to pay the bail on your behalf.
If you decide to use a bail bondsman, the company will typically ask you to pay the money up in advance and won’t reimburse you afterward, whether or not the criminal makes the required court appearances. As their fee, the bondsman retains it.
What Will Happen If The Person On Bail Doesn’t Show Up For Court?
If the defendant is absent from court, you will forfeit the money you spent for their bail if you paid the full bail on your own without a bondsman.
However, if you hire a bail bondsman to pay the bail on your behalf and the defendant doesn’t show up for court at the scheduled time, the bondsman will forfeit the bail amount.
The person you release from custody is under your care, and it is their responsibility to appear in court on time.
If you used a bondsman to bail out the individual and they don’t show up, the bondsman WILL come after you to get the money they lost.
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