It’s tough to go to prison or be put to jail. The hassle and everything in between can shred significant amounts of time outside preparing for what will happen to your money, bills, possessions, and other concerns. However, even though you are inside the prison, your financial obligations won’t go away. On top of that, you still have bills that need to be paid. Imagine you’re inside the cell thinking about your bills.
In addition, you will no longer have access to your personal or joint bank account, making various financial obligations much more difficult. The government believes that they can seize assets too. Your best-case scenario is when you post bail and make arrangements for your finances before being convicted. If you were not able to post bail, someone has to do the duties.
This is one of the essential things you need to put a lot of thought into before you are convicted. Even though you have a family member or a close friend to take care of your personal belongings, everyone has their bills to be paid while they are behind bars.
A prime example of that is monthly streaming subscriptions and pending credit card payments. Moreover, suppose your property is not in the care of any of your family members. In that case, you might lose that entirely if your account balance is depleted and low for the automatic withdrawals associated with paying rent, storage units, or mortgage.
If you have no recurring payments, any money you have in your bank accounts when you are in a prison sentence is still yours. However, they are problems that might arise since many banks will freeze your account if no activity occurs with six to twelve months. If your sentence is longer than this period, a minor recurring payment may be beneficial to prevent your account from becoming frozen.
As we mentioned earlier, the government may also freeze your accounts for extended periods and eventually seize the funds if they prove you financially benefitted from the crime.
This is the reason why many lawyers recommend taking care of your property and financial situation before you end up incarcerated. This matter is extremely difficult to do if you are arrested and unable to post bail. But you may still be able to handle some of these matters by meeting your defense attorney before being convicted.
If you are sentenced to jail, a defense lawyer can ask the judge for a report date for custody. In turn, you can have a set amount of time to take care of all of this.
Also, while you are in prison, you need someone to handle your business. For most people, this means giving your business partner or a close friend your business assets.
Once you are in prison, you will no longer be able to manage your finances. Your options are to make arrangements for someone else to handle your financial obligations on your behalf. Some of these options include:
It is also crucial to finding someone you can trust to regularly access your funds or pay your bills while you are in prison. Depending on your financial status, you can always choose the most reasonable option.
Any kind of prison sentence does not exempt you from paying your lease or mortgage. Depending on whether you rent, you have your own or other property; you have two options:
This situation solely depends on the charges on which you’ve been convicted. For most crimes, your money remains in your bank account. However, for other crimes, your bank account may be frozen. Even you stay in control of your money, some banks may freeze your account as a safety feature.
Unfortunately, you don’t have any access to your regular bank accounts while serving time. However, there is an option. That option is that you may have access to a prison account or prison trust set up by the state in order to make purchases from approved catalogs. You can designate someone whom you trust the most to do this. Rules for these accounts vary by state or prison, so you need to check with your prison to learn specific rules.
Suppose you have plans to open a bank account, do it before you are incarcerated because you will not be able to open a bank account while you are in prison, as all banks require a physical appearance for that. In addition, even you are sentenced to life imprisonment, you should still care for your finances in case something happens. You might be paroled or released; we don’t know. If you think prison is where you will live for the rest of your life, you may also want to create a will just in case something terrible happens.
If you have questions about what happens to your stuff or belongings if you end up being incarcerated, don’t hesitate to contact our experienced defense attorney to know more information about how to manage your possessions and other stuff before going to prison or while in prison. At Summit Defense, you can discuss this information in detail during your free consultation with our defense attorneys. You can call us at 1 (866) 537-2584 to schedule appointments or fill out our online form here.
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