What is a Bail Bond? California Bail Bonds Information

A licensed California bondsman, explains exactly 'what is a bail bond' in terms of the State of California and its definition.

Bail bonds are available in all California counties for all jails.

A bail bond is a type of surety bond and it is a contract between the bail bond company, the defendant, and the courts.

What the contract states is that the defendant will appear at a later time as required by the court.

Assuming that the defendant finalizes the matter in court, the bondsman really won’t be involved after the defendant is released from jail.

Most of the people that we bail out, return to court and it’s… there’s no problem. It’s probably less than 1% of the people that we bail out fail to appear.

Usually when someone fails to appear, it’s simply some kind of misunderstanding. Perhaps they… they didn’t know which court to go to or they went at the wrong time, or they… they got the court date wrong.

Whatever the issue is, those types of problems are easily resolved.

Where we have a huge problem is when the defendant flat out fails to appear. When this happens, we have six months to locate the defendant and return them back into the legal system.

If we cannot locate the defendant, ultimately it’s the person who signs for the bond that’s financially responsible for the bond. If the person who signed for the bond can’t pay us, then ultimately we’re responsible as the bail bond company.