Understanding Cash or Surety, Cash Only, and Ten Percent Option Bonds

What is the difference between a cash bond and a cash or surety bond? What about a ten percent option to the clerk? These are all good questions and they usually come fast and furious after a loved one is jailed on a criminal complaint in Iowa.

A cash bond is a bond in which you must post cash to the clerk of court. A corporate surety bond is a special type of bond where your bondsman, with the assistance of a corporation that writes bonds, can put up a financial instrument that has the value of your bond amount. A criminal defendant and his or her family pay the bondsman a fee for this service (it’s how the bondsman earns a living) and the defendant never sees that fee again. The bondsman files the surety bond with the clerk of court and this substitutes for the cash. If it is a “cash only” bond, the defendant cannot use a corporate surety to post the bond. Typically, this means that they must find the cash out of pocket or have a family member post it. However, some bondsmen will post cash for an even higher percentage fee—usually only if the defendant and his or family secures the cash bond with significant collateral like unburdened real estate (a house that is paid off). Sometimes collateral can include a paid-off late model car.

Bondsmen are private sector businesspeople and, within the confines of the law, they write their own bonds and transact business in the private sector. They are connected to the court system but they don’t work for the courts.

When a cell mate tells a defendant that he or she needs to come up with ten percent to secure the services of a bondsman, this is a general rule of thumb for corporate surety bonds but by no means required or enforceable. That's because the bondsman does his own business on his own terms within the law. He might not even write a bond if he believes the defendant is a flight risk.

 

In certain cases, the judge will allow a “ten percent option to the clerk” or other percentage option to the clerk. This allows the defendant to post a certain amount of the bond amount to the clerk without using the services of a bondsman. First, that saves the family a considerable fee to a bondsman by cutting out the middle man. Second, once the matter is resolved with either a trial or a plea agreement, costs and fines, if any, can be deducted from clerk option.

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