Now that the bond hearing has concluded and the judge has set bond, one may wonder what is next? If you have the money should you just pay the bond all in cash or when should you hire a bail bondsman to negotiate release? To help answers these questions, here are some things to think about.
If you have the resources to pay upfront
If you are fortunate enough to have the kind of money that you can just pay the entire bond then it leaves you with a few more choices than most. The most obvious is to pay a cash bond and get that money back in a few months onces the case concludes and fines and fees are deducted but some may still choose to go with a bail bondsman just because it frees up more money on hand to take care of life expenses in the case that some can pay but cannot afford to such a sizable amount held up for months on end.
If you don’t have the resources to pay upfront
If the cost of the bond in its entirety is more than you can afford, this is the situation in which most people will come to a bail bondsman. When you work with a bail bondsman, they will negotiate to get you releases at a small fraction of the actual cost of the bond which is typically 10%. The only catch to this is that this 10% is not refundable but it will be the only amount you need to come up with to be released. This is the obvious choice for most because bond costs can be far more than what most people even have in savings so it allows the opportunity of being released to far more wide reaching population.
If you don’t have the resources to pay for a bail bond
Now if even 10% is more than you can afford, you are not alone. This is still a decent amount of money and most bail bond companies understand this. Because of this, many may allow collateral to be put while others will work with you to create payment plans.
Overall, though it may not seem like it, you don’t always have to have a ton of money to be able to get released while awaiting trial and even if you do have resources, it may still be beneficial to work with a bail bondsman as opposed to spending all your money and having nothing liquid while you are waiting.
