The five-day notice, and the event it runs from
The clerk of the court mails or electronically transmits notice to you and to your surety within 5 days after the forfeiture. That obligation is the court’s, not yours. The number is the same as Virginia’s and the clock is not: Virginia’s five days run from the breach of the condition of appearance, Florida’s run from the order of forfeiture, which can be a later day. The product measures from the order, and every number in this sentence is read from the rules pack it counts with.
Fla. Stat. § 903.26(2)(a)
60 days to pay or discharge, and the hour Florida did not write
60 days from the date that notice went out, to pay the forfeiture or have it discharged. Producing the defendant is one of several grounds and paying is another, and either satisfies it, so this is not a produce-the-defendant window in the Virginia sense and the product does not label it as one. FL law fixes no time of day for this deadline. Bondskeeper counts to 12:00 court-local so the countdown runs out before the real cutoff rather than after it. The hour is ours, not the state's, and the last day is what the law actually gives you.
Fla. Stat. § 903.26(2)(a), (5); Fla. Stat. § 903.27(1)
The premium is your filed rate, and there is no band to slide
Florida states no percentage at all. The lawful premium is the rate your surety insurer filed with the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, and charging above it and charging below it are the same offence in the same sentence, a first-degree misdemeanour. So this page publishes no band and the quote has none to clamp to: the filed rate comes off your power record, and a Florida quote without one is not produced at all. Anyone who tells you Florida is a ten percent state is describing a filing, and filings change without a legislature.
Fla. Stat. § 648.33(1), (2), (3)
Remission declines, so the schedule is the answer and one number is not
Florida gives you five steps measured from the forfeiture, not one window at one figure: 100 percent within 90 days of the forfeiture, then 95 percent within 180 days of the forfeiture, then 90 percent within 270 days of the forfeiture, then 85 percent within 1 year of the forfeiture, then 50 percent within 2 years of the forfeiture. Remission is granted on the condition of paying costs, so every recovery call, mile and fee is a ledger entry from the first day. The percentage is read off the date the defendant was surrendered or apprehended, because a single figure would tell you at month 23 that the whole bond was recoverable when 50 percent of it is.
Fla. Stat. § 903.28(1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (7), (8)
Collateral, the 21 days, and the receipt that is yours to write
Florida requires collateral to be received and held in the insurer’s name in a fiduciary capacity, kept separate and apart from your own funds before any forfeiture, receipted in writing, and returned to the person who put it up within 21 days of the discharge. Missing that carries an administrative fine of five times the dollar amount of the collateral. We record what was taken, from whom and what it is worth, on the bond itself. We do not produce the receipt and we do not count that clock, so both of those stay yours.
Fla. Stat. § 648.571(1), (2)
What the Department asks for, which is not a monthly return
Florida has no monthly outstanding-bonds filing. What the Department of Financial Services has instead is production on demand: 48 hours to produce the records of every Florida bond you have written once the Department asks for them, and 10 working days to report a change of name, address, email or telephone, to the Department and to your insurer and to the clerk of every court you are registered in. Neither is a form we file for you. What the product does is keep the record in one place, so producing it is a lookup rather than a search.
69B-221.003(2), 69B-221.051(5), 69B-221.060(1), (2) F.A.C.; Fla. Stat. § 648.421
3 years of records, and no hard delete
Florida requires at least 3 years of records from the date the liability of the surety was terminated. At least, so 3 years is a floor and never a licence to delete on the day it passes. There is no hard delete for case data: soft delete only, with the retention floor computed from that date. One Florida difference worth knowing: collateral is vested in the insurer rather than in you, so your own file is not the whole record of a Florida bond.
Fla. Stat. § 648.36