Three Reasons Why You May Not Need to Finance a Bail Bond

With a relative in jail asking you to get a bail bond, you might be thinking that you will have to put a second mortgage on the house, or max out your credit cards. Sure, you could do that, but in most legal cases, you really do not need to do anything that big. Here are three reasons why you may not have to finance the bail bond for your family member. 

You Only Need about Ten Percent

Ten percent of the amount of bail that the judge sets is all that is required at the hands of a bail agent. So, let's say for the sake of argument that the judge sets bail at twenty thousand dollars. That is quite a big chunk of bail, so your relative's charges would have to be pretty severe. Going with the typical "ten percent down" rule, you would only have to come up with two grand, not twenty.

Even if the bail agent is one of those rare agents that charges twenty percent down, four thousand dollars is still easier to get than the full twenty. Since almost every crime that a person could be charged with has a much lower amount of bail (usually between five hundred and five thousand dollars), you could skip financing the bond. In most cases, a couple hundred bucks is all you need for the bail agent, and that is not something you really have to break the bank over. 

Ultra-Extreme Bail Is Really a Courtroom Drama Sort of Thing

If you watch a lot of courtroom dramas, there is a good chance that you hear judges setting bail on hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars. You should know that this is for dramatic effect, and only accused serial killers and rapists who have monetary resources would ever come close to having such extreme amounts of bail set. (Think multi-millionaire, flight risk, and accused of being a serial rapist of children; that level of bad is necessary for a judge to set extreme bail.) Before you start losing it and trying to scrape together however much money that the judge says, realize that the bail agent only asks for ten percent, and bail is never set that high. 

Most Bond Agents Can Work with You

Nobody wants to go into debt to get a family member out of jail. That is riskier than playing the stock market. Knowing that you need help securing the bond, many bail bond agents are willing to work with clients to come to a legal agreement that works for all parties involved. 


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