What is the deal with Bail Bonds? When you hear that someone was released on bond, what exactly does that mean? I’ve been arrested one time, but luckly I had the cash to pay the bail, but what if I didn’t? I’ve heard of real estate bonds, cash bonds, and bail bond companies, what exactly do they do?
Basically, it’s a company that loans money to a person so they can meet bail, allowing them to leave jail until their court date. They make money off of the interest of the loan. The fun begins if you skip bail and don’t pay them back. Then they send bounty hunters after you to get their money back.
Let’s say you are arrested for murder and the judge sets your bail at $100,000. You don’t have $100,000, so you call a bail bond company. You give them a downpayment of $10,000, and they pay your bail. When you show up at court, they will get their $100,000 back, thus making a $10,000 profit.
If you skip town, the bail bond company risks not getting its money back. This is why when you get a bail bond, you sign a contract that says, “If I skip town, I give you permission to chase me down and get me.” Because the contract is a private agreement and does not involve the cops, bounty hunters who work for bail bonds companies can persue you across state lines and arrest you without need for a warrant or other annoying formalities. There’s often a lot of money at stake, so bounty hunting is big business.
In Canada there are no bail bondsman and I just recently found out (not through personal experience) that a person can not post their own bond here. Not an answer to the OP but an interesting fact I thought I’d throw out.