Family Violence Bail Bonds in San Marcos and Hays County

Bobcat Bail Bonds writes family violence bail bonds in San Marcos and across Hays County, including domestic violence charges, 24 hours a day. These cases often come with a protective order and strict bond conditions, so we explain what the paperwork says before anyone signs. Se habla español.

Need help right now? Call (737) 414-0422. Open 24 hours, 7 days a week. Se habla español.

Who writes family violence bail bonds in San Marcos?

Bobcat Bail Bonds writes family violence bail bonds in San Marcos and throughout Hays County, at any hour. Once a magistrate sets bail, we post a surety bond at the Hays County Jail for the full amount. Before you sign, we go over the protective order and bond conditions with you, because family violence cases usually have both.

An arrest inside a family is hard on everyone in it. The person who calls us might be a parent, a partner, a brother or an adult child of the one who was arrested. We do not take sides and we do not judge. Our job is the bond: posting it, explaining what it requires, and helping the family keep to it.

What counts as family violence in Texas?

Texas law uses the term “family violence.” Most people say “domestic violence,” and they mean the same kind of case. The Family Code defines family violence as an act by a member of a family or household against another member that is meant to cause physical harm, bodily injury, assault or sexual assault, or a threat that reasonably puts the other person in fear of that harm.

The definition also covers certain abuse of a child in the family or household, and dating violence. Self-defense is not family violence under that definition.

How the charge level affects bail

Most family violence arrests are for assault. Assault causing bodily injury is a Class A misdemeanor at its base level. Against a family or household member or a dating partner, it becomes a third-degree felony if the person has a qualifying earlier conviction, or if the charge says they impeded the other person’s normal breathing or blood circulation, which is the legal description of strangulation. With both, it can be a second-degree felony.

Texas has no fixed bail amount for these charges. The magistrate sets bail for each person, and the factors the law lists include the future safety of the alleged victim and the community, and the person’s criminal history, including any earlier acts of family violence. What charge applies in a particular case is a legal question we cannot answer.

What makes a family violence bond different?

Three things set these bonds apart from most others: an emergency protective order is common, release can be held up for a few hours after the bond is posted, and the bond often carries stay-away conditions. Knowing this in advance helps a family avoid a mistake that could send someone back to jail.

The magistrate’s order for emergency protection

After a family violence arrest, the person is taken before a magistrate, by law no later than 48 hours after the arrest. Hays County’s magistrates hold hearings seven days a week, and obtaining emergency protection orders is part of their listed work.

Under Article 17.292, the magistrate may issue a magistrate’s order for emergency protection, on the magistrate’s own motion or at the request of the alleged victim, a guardian, a peace officer or the prosecutor. The magistrate must issue one when the arrest involves serious bodily injury to the alleged victim, or the use or display of a deadly weapon during an assault.

The order can bar the arrested person from:

• committing family violence or assault against the protected person
• contacting a family or household member in a threatening or harassing way, directly or through someone else
• going to or near the home, workplace or business of a protected family or household member, or the home, school or child care center of a protected child
• having a firearm, with a narrow exception for some peace officers
• tracking the protected person’s car or property without consent

With a finding of good cause, the magistrate can go further and bar any contact at all except through attorneys or people the court appoints.

For an order issued on or after September 1, 2025, it generally lasts at least 61 days and up to 91 days. When a deadly weapon was used or shown during an assault, the range is 91 to 121 days. The order itself has to warn that breaking it can mean a fine of up to $4,000, up to a year in jail, or both. It also has to say, in capital letters or bold type, that no one, including a person the order protects, can give permission to ignore or break it. An invitation to come home does not make a visit allowed.

Extra time in custody after bail is posted

This surprises many families. Under Article 17.291, when someone is arrested without a warrant for family violence and there is probable cause to believe the violence will continue, the arresting agency must hold them for four hours after bond is posted. Before September 1, 2025 that hold was optional; now it is required. A magistrate can extend that hold by up to 48 hours in writing, and an extension past 24 hours needs further findings about the person’s past arrests.

So a posted bond does not always mean release right away. The Hays County Jail also says it processes bonds in the order received and cannot give a specific release time. We will never promise you one.

Stay-away and monitoring conditions on the bond

Separate from the protective order, Article 17.49 lets a magistrate add conditions to the bond in a family violence case. The person can be ordered to stay away from the alleged victim’s home, school, workplace or other places the victim often goes, at a set distance. The magistrate can also order a GPS monitoring device, paid for by the defendant, with a reduced fee if the magistrate finds them indigent.

If the alleged victim agrees, they can carry a device that warns them when the defendant comes near one of those places. Taking part is the alleged victim’s choice. They can ask the magistrate to end it at any time, and they cannot be penalized for saying no or stopping.

In Hays County, Judicial Services runs the GPS monitoring program and says those devices are watched 24 hours a day. Their guide also says bond conditions can only be removed by a court order.

Personal bonds and felony family violence

A personal bond is a release without a bail bond, on the person’s own written promise to come back to court. With narrow exceptions written into the law, Texas does not allow a personal bond for anyone charged with an “offense involving violence,” and that term includes felony assault involving family violence. Since September 1, 2025, the same bar covers a charge of breaking a family violence bond condition or protective order under Penal Code Section 25.07. In those cases a surety bond, like the ones we write, or a cash bond is how the person gets out.

What co-signers should know before signing

The co-signer is the person who signs the bond agreement with us and promises the defendant will go to every court date. In a family violence case there is more to think about than usual.

Before you co-sign, think through these points:

• Where the person will live. If the protective order covers your home, they cannot stay with you, even if you want them to.
• Whether you are a protected person. If you are named in the order, ask before you do anything that brings the two of you together. Call us first.
• Firearms. If the order bars firearms, the person may not have one while it lasts.
• Court dates. Your promise is that they will appear every time. Write the dates down.

Our page on co-signing a bail bond explains the agreement, what happens if a court date is missed, and how collateral comes back. If you are not sure whether a particular contact is allowed, that is a legal question for the court. Ask before you act.

How Bobcat posts a family violence bond

Here is how it works with us, from your first call to the release.

What to have ready

These details let us start right away:

• The person’s full legal name and date of birth
• Where they are held, and the booking number if you know it
• The charge and the bail amount, if bail has been set
• A copy or photo of any protective order or bond conditions, if you have one
• Your photo ID, if you will co-sign

If you do not know where the person is held, our guide to the Hays County Jail inmate search shows how to look them up. You can also start a bail bond online and we will call you back.

The steps

The order of events is usually this:

1. We confirm the booking, the charge and whether bail has been set.
2. We go over any protective order and bond conditions with you.
3. The co-signer signs the agreement and pays our fee. Bail bond fees are set case by case, and qualified applicants may be eligible for payment plans. We take credit and debit cards, Zelle and Venmo.
4. We post the surety bond at the Hays County Jail.
5. The jail processes the release, which may come after any hold the law allows.

In Hays County, a bail bond company must be licensed by the Hays County Bail Bond Board to write bonds. Bobcat is licensed by the Hays County Bail Bond Board, and our owner has years of experience as a bail bond agent and runner.

For a plain-words overview of the whole bond process, read how bail bonds work in Hays County. For what the fee covers, see the cost of a bail bond in Hays County.

Other charges and other towns

Family violence arrests sometimes come with other charges, or with an older warrant. We also write assault bail bonds in San Marcos and felony bail bonds, and we serve families across Hays County. We do not write immigration bonds.

Call (737) 414-0422 day or night, in English or Spanish, or contact Bobcat Bail Bonds by message. We will tell you straight what we can do.

This page is general information, not legal advice, and it may not fit your situation. Bail law and local procedures change; the sources below show where each fact came from. Bobcat Bail Bonds is a bail bond company, not a law firm. We cannot give legal advice and we do not recommend lawyers.