In Florida, when a person is arrested, they are taken before a judge at a hearing called “first appearance.” This usually happens within 24 hours of arrest. At this hearing, the judge can either set a bond, can deny bond or can change the amount of a bond (this is also the hearing where most public defender appointments occur, assuming the defendant qualifies for one).
What if you want to bond someone out of jail, but their bond is too large?
One option is to have the defendant request a bond reduction hearing. This hearing is usually set by the defendant’s attorney, and most of the time will be held before the judge assigned to the defendant’s case (there is a good chance that this judge will be a different one than the one from the first appearance hearing). If the person in jail was arrested on a warrant, however, the bond amount on that warrant, if there is a bond, is usually set by the same judge who will be the judge at the bond reduction hearing.
If you do not want to wait to see if the bond will be lowered at a later date, or if the judge has not lowered the bond sufficiently at a previously held bond hearing, there is another option. You can contact a bail bondsman and see if he or she will take a partial payment of the bail bond fee up front and set you up on a payment plan. You probably will be asked to sign a promissory note to guarantee the balance of the fee, but often, if a large amount is owed, the bondsman may hold property or may take a mortgage on real property to guarantee the balance.
And remember, if you co-sign to guarantee a bond premium, you can be and probably will be sued if you miss one or more payments, and you risk losing any tangible property you may have put up to secure the debt.
Know what your obligations and risks are before you co-sign on a bail bond. Co-signing on a bond is not like writing a letter of recommendation for an individual–it carries a real financial risk to the signer. You are guaranteeing an accused defendant’s appearance in court, for each and every court date that the person is required to make, until the charges against that defendant are terminated.
Co-signing usually involves the signing of a promissory note or an indemnity agreement, each of which financially obligates you up to the full amount of the bail bond you are guaranteeing. Many times these instruments (the promissory note or indemnity agreement) are executed in conjunction with your pledging tangible property (i.e. cash, a real estate mortgage, a lien on an automobile, an assignment on a bank account, or even the pledging of household property, like electronics and jewelry).
One of the most important questions a cosigner should ask is this: How long am I financially responsible if I cosign on a bond?
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People often ask “Why should I pay a bail bondsman a 10% fee for a bail bond if I have the money to put up for a cash bond?” That’s a good question. In the old days, when a person deposited the bond amount in cash, all of the money was returned to the depositor when the case was over.
A few years ago, however, the Florida legislature changed the laws so that the judge could order fines and court costs taken from the cash deposit. With government entities so cash-strapped now, often a very large percentage of the deposited money is being taken out of the cash bond amount. Sometimes they will take all of it. And sometimes in some counties they will even take cash bonds to pay older fines.
But when a bail agent writes the bond, the 10 per cent bail bond fee is all a person is ever going to pay (unless there is a breach of the bond due to the defendant’s nonappearance in court. But that’s another blog topic for another day). Most bail agencies will notify the indemnitors of all court dates for defendants, and having the co-signer aware of all of the court dates makes it more likely that the defendant will make all of his (or her) court apprearances.
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