Two Lines on the Intent to Bond Sheet

A proposal by Chad Conley, licensed California bail agent. First published October 2026.

Listen to this page (10 min). Read by an AI voice.

Hey guys, let's talk about this.

We already fax or email an intent to bond sheet at a bunch of jails. And there's a lot we like about it. You don't have to jump in the car and almost get a ticket racing down there.

Now be honest:

• –How many of you have raced to the jail and showed up at the exact same time as another agent?
• –How many of you were there for her, the one in custody, knowing the other bail guy was there for her angry husband?
• –How many of you think the person inside should get to choose who bonds them out, and who the cosigner is? We all know how much power that cosigner has.

So check this out. Two more lines on the intent to bond sheet, and we put our money where our mouth is.

Small investment. Big return.

Add two lines to the intent to bond sheet we already fax or email: the cosigner's name and the cosigner's phone number.

What we get for it

• –Protects victims, including the one sitting in the cell.
• –Cuts out illegal, unlicensed companies.
• –No real contract, no sheet. Ends the race to the window.
• –Every agent gets a fair shot. No more bond drops.
• –Fewer transfers to county. Cops stay on the beat. Taxpayers save.
• –Proves the 56% who voted to keep bail were right, and shows the other 44% how much we already do for victims.

What should happen at every city jail

• –Every intent to bond sheet lists the cosigner's name and phone number.
• –The first sheet starts a 30-minute window. The person in custody picks their agent and cosigner.

You already do this

A lot of us already send an intent to bond sheet to the jail. Orange County is one of them. You send it in, and that starts their clock to pull the yellow slip with the bond and court information, which comes down to the cashier counter. Or you walk in, say you're there to post, and they request the yellow slip then.

So this isn't new work. It's the same sheet with two extra lines: the cosigner's name and their phone number.

The police already do their part too. At most city jails, it's already their policy to ask the person in custody, "There's a bail agent here. Do you want to be bonded out? Yes or no?" So the 30-minute choice doesn't really change their procedure. It's the same question they already ask.

The person in jail can be the victim

Every agent has seen this. Everybody talks about protecting women, so let's use that example.

She's the one in custody. Her angry husband is the one bonding her out, and she doesn't want him to. He just spent thousands of dollars. He's going to be angrier when they get home. The argument isn't over, and nothing has cooled down. Two agents were ready at the same moment, and she still got no say in who would be in charge of her bond. Money wasn't the issue. I had those conversations with her afterward.

It happens to men too. The point is the same: the person in that cell should choose who holds a bond over their case, and over them.

Look what the contract says

Here's the part most of us never stop to read. The standard surety contract we all have people sign says it plainly:

• –The surety, as bail, "shall have control and jurisdiction over you" while the bond is in effect.
• –If any cosigner asks for you to be surrendered, that's a breach. On you.
• –Move without written permission, and that's a breach.
• –They can enter your home without notice and put a tracker on your car.

That's not a knock on our sureties. That's the job. But think about who's holding that power when the cosigner is the angry husband.

She can't swap him out. Nothing in the contract gives her that right. Her only way out from under him is back to jail. And a surrender costs her. Most people barely came up with the first bond, so a second one is out of reach. She can end up in front of the judge in a jumpsuit. She can lose her job.

Why it gets ugly

While they're fighting, weeks and months go by. She moves out, stays with family, goes to work, looks for a new place. Moving without permission is already a breach. A manipulative cosigner can use that to make her look like a flight risk, the same way people play games in family court.

We're good at smelling that out. That's part of our value. But not every time.

What good agents already do

When it's clear what's going on, most of us take the husband off, take less collateral, and go on our relationship with her. Her job, her kids, what's going on in her life. We help her.

That's risk we take on ourselves, and it comes later. The 30-minute choice is about the start, when two people are racing to bond her out. If the cosigner she picked turns on her down the road, it's on us to handle it right. Most of us do.

When the cosigner is the victim

In my experience, about nine times out of ten, the person bonding them out is the supposed victim. Most of the time, she's asking us what time he's getting out, and we tell her.

Here's a real one. A wife called me to bond out her husband on a domestic violence arrest. She said, "We're married, our finances are together, we can't afford to lose the house, and he has to be at work tomorrow." If he loses his job and they lose the house, she gets hurt all over again. There was a temporary restraining order. She said, "I'll sign, I'll pay, I'll be the cosigner, but I don't want to deal with him, and he's not coming here."

So I dealt with him. I figured out where he'd stay. I gave her the VINE information so she'd know the minute he was out. I helped arrange getting his belongings the right way under the restraining order. I've even brought in a private investigator, working with the attorney, to keep everything handled right. These are the stories nobody talks about.

That's where VINE fits for us: when the victim is our client and wants to know, without having to deal with him.

So on every domestic violence bond, offer the cosigner the VINE information. Don't assume they're waiting for him or getting right back together. It costs us nothing, and it's how we show we protect victims. My VINE page has a free handout in English and Spanish.

And if she comes back scared, she has a real lever: us. We listen. We check for a protective order. As the professional, we decide whether there's real cause to surrender.

When we never meet the victim

Sometimes family calls us, and we never have contact with the supposed victim. Let's be honest about that.

What we do instead is keep the defendant accountable. We make sure they show up, they don't miss court, and they stay on track. I talk with every defendant. I check for a restraining order when they get out. I usually know the story, where they're staying, and what's coming at arraignment, and I can tell when someone's lying.

The bail agent knows the defendant better than anyone and is responsible for getting them to court. You don't get that with an OR release.

We're not giving anything up

We're insurance agents, and these are contracts. When you sign the sheet, you're saying you already have a deal with a cosigner, whether it's a signed contract or a text agreeing to it. If somebody keeps beating everyone to the window with no deal, their call logs will show it.

We're not trying to be the police. We're holding ourselves to our own standards. "What if somebody breaks the rules?" isn't a reason to skip this. They already break them. This helps stop it. It has the same goal as the new fake-agent law, AB 1927, signed September 30, 2026.

It builds our proof

For the first time, there's a record of when an agent started the bond. Line that up with when the van left for county. Then count the cost: booked at the city, transported, booked again at county, held overnight. All of it when the bond could have posted right up the street.

Why now

The next battle over bail is already starting. We kept bail with 56% of the vote. We can't win the next one on numbers alone, like how much we save taxpayers. Numbers get spun, and half the time we don't even get the numbers we ask for.

A lot of the 44% who voted against us think we just let bad people out on the street. That's who we have to reach. We won't get them by talking to our own side. We get them with small, easy things like this, done ahead of time and written down, that show how we protect the community.

And here's the crazy part. Something this small also protects our bonds, cuts out the illegal companies, and saves cities money.

This isn't just an idea. It's something we should be doing.

Are you with me?

If you agree, don't stay silent. Not this time.

Email me at [email protected] and tell me you're in. Put your name and number. If you've got a real reason this won't work, or something that makes it stronger, send that too.

The details

Everything below is the how-to: the sheet itself, how a jail could sign agents up, the choice window, and how to help build the record.

What the sheet says

One line at the top:

"Sent by a licensed bail agent with authority to post this bond."

A copy of your bail license goes with it. That line means three things:

• –I'm a licensed agent.
• –I have the authority to post this bond, and the person who asked for it has agreed to it.
• –I'm ready to post.

Some jails keep a list of agents they've already checked. When I came back to posting in Orange County after a long break, they told me I wasn't in their system, looked up my license, and added me. The next time, they said I was already in. Not every jail works the same way, and some may not recheck every time. A license copy on the sheet works either way: a jail that already has you can ignore it, and a jail that doesn't can look you up right away.

No premium and no pricing go on the sheet. It names the person in custody, the agent, the cosigner, and the person who actually asked for the bond.

What a jail could do with it: sign up once

To prove you're a licensed bail agent, you need three things:

1. 1.Your driver's license.
2. 2.Your bail license ID card from the Department of Insurance. CDI says this card is how you identify yourself and show you have met all licensing requirements. If you lose it, you can't post until the replacement comes in the mail, which takes weeks. So agents guard that card.
3. 3.Your license certificate, which you can print from the CDI website anytime.

A sheriff or city jail could set up its own simple process: if you want to post bonds here, sign up online once and upload those three items. After that, every intent to bond sheet with your license number matches a name the jail has already checked. No new law is needed. It's the jail's own process.

That's also the practical side of the new law against fake bail agents. The Bail Consumer Protection Act (AB 1927, signed September 30, 2026) makes it a crime to pose as a licensed bail agent while soliciting bail, or to hire someone who does. The law punishes it after the fact. An intent to bond sheet with your license number, plus a one-time sign-up, stops it at the window.

The choice window

The first intent to bond sheet starts a short choice window. It runs while booking is already happening, so no one sits in jail one minute longer. The person in custody gets the chance to choose who posts. If booking finishes first, or they choose sooner, the window ends.

Who this is about

• –Included: anyone with bail set on everything they're being held for, including a warrant with bail set. With a warrant, you post two bonds, one for the warrant and one for the new arrest.
• –Not included: no-bail warrants and holds, like parole, probation without bail, or another agency's hold. Those go to county.
• –Not included: cities that contract with the sheriff. Their arrests go straight to county.

We're not asking to change the court's role on warrants, and we're not asking to take away the watch commander's judgment.

Why the city should care

Every watch commander weighs the same things before a transport: Did that call just end? Is it close to shift change? Should the next shift take it? Will it get busy later tonight? Those are fair calls to make. But the fact that a transport has to be fit around patrol shows what it costs: people and hours.

State rules let a city jail hold someone up to 96 hours after booking (Title 15, section 1006). A transfer a few hours after booking is usually a local habit, not a legal requirement.

Help build the record

Our whole fight is about two things: keeping the community safe and saving taxpayers money. We can prove both, but only with real numbers.

Getting numbers out of cities and counties is a full-time job. It takes weeks to get an answer, and it's often a partial one, or a letter saying the request is too broad. Even then, official numbers are counted in ways that never show what we see at the window. Ours are different. We were there. We know when the intent to bond sheet went in, when we were ready to post, and when the van pulled out.

So keep a log every time you post at a city jail. No names, no booking numbers. Times are enough. When you've got a few, send them to me at [email protected]. I'll put everyone's logs together into one set of numbers, with no client or agent names, and that's what goes in front of the people who make these decisions.

Write down:

• –when you sent the intent to bond sheet
• –when you were ready to post
• –when the transport left
• –whether a jailer or patrol officer drove
• –the reason they gave
• –when the bond posted at county

Find your city's policy

Every police department in California has to post its current policies online (Penal Code 13650). Search "[your city] police policy manual" and look for the custody or temporary custody chapter. In the three city manuals I've read so far, none of them says anything about a bond that's pending or an agent who's on the way. If your city's jail manual isn't posted, you can ask for it with a public records request.

Sample request (copy and paste):

"Under the California Public Records Act, I request: (1) the current jail or detention facility operations manual for the [City] Police Department; (2) any written policy on when arrestees are transferred to county custody; and (3) any written policy on accepting bail at the city jail. Electronic copies by email are fine."

Send me what you have

This is our fight, and a lot of you have been in it longer than I have. Some of you kept swinging while I was away. Well, I'm back, and I'm all in. Over the years, agents have filed public records requests, pulled court and jail data, and built charts for battles that came and went. A lot of it never got used, or the timing wasn't right.

Let's put it all in one place. If you have records from a public records request, court or jail numbers, charts, studies, or anything you think got overlooked, send it to me at [email protected]. Old is fine. Numbers from years ago, side by side with what's coming in now, can show what's changed.

Before you send anything, black out client names and personal information. Tell me where it came from and when. And tell me if I can mention your name, or if you'd rather stay anonymous. I'll only credit you if you say so.

A tip on medication

Ask the family early whether the person takes any medication. At some city jails, medication needs a doctor's clearance, and that alone can lead to a transfer. If you know early, you can move faster.

A suggestion for law enforcement

This isn't part of the proposal. It's a suggestion. Officers on a domestic violence call are already with the victim, and they already have to give every victim a Marsy's rights card (Penal Code 679.026). Adding the VINE information to that would let victims know when someone is released, without release ever waiting on a phone call.