Bail bonds are used to pay the court as assurance that you will appear in court at your appointed court date. If you pay the bail money directly to the court, you will be paying the full amount of the bail money. So, if your bail is $10,000, you would pay $10,000 to the court, then when you are released from jail and once you show up for your court date, you will get almost all of your money back minus some small court fees.

Using A Bail Bond Agent To Get Bailed Out

If you cannot afford or don’t want to front the entire bail amount to the court, you can hire a bail bonds agent and pay only 10% of the total bond fee.  The bail bonds agent will front the money for you and keep your 10% payment as their service fee for posting your full bail amount.

What Happens To Bail Money If I Skip Court?

Skipping your court date when you have a contract with a bail bonds company, depending on the contract, can result in bounty hunters calling your work or friends and family, paying friends to turn you in, investigative research, and personally hunting you down to find and detain you. Unlike police, a bounty hunter can go across state borders.

If your bail was $20,000 and you paid $2,000 to the bondsman and skip court, the bondsman is now liable for that $20,000, so bounty hunters will go to great lengths to find you if you skip court and run.