§ 995.730.Force and Effect of Deposit

This is the section that ties the deposit-in-lieu-of-bond option back into the rest of the Bond and Undertaking Law. Once a principal deposits cash or securities instead of giving a bond, the deposit doesn't sit in some separate legal category -- it has the same force and effect as the bond would have had, and it's treated the same way under every provision that would otherwise apply to the bond.

That equivalence runs to the details. Statutory provisions governing increases or decreases in a bond's amount apply to the deposit just as they would to the bond, and the liability the deposit secures is the same liability the bond would have secured. A beneficiary relying on a deposit gets the same protection a bond would have provided; a principal who deposited instead of bonding faces the same obligations a surety relationship would have created.