Escrow Service

Escrow is best known in the United States in the context of real estate (specifically in mortgages where the mortgage company establishes an escrow account to pay property tax and insurance during the term of the mortgage). Escrow companies are also commonly used in the transfer of high value personal and business property, like websites and businesses, and in the completion of person-to-person remote auctions (such as eBay). In the UK escrow accounts are often used during private property transactions to hold solicitors' client's money, such as the deposit, until such time as the transaction completes.

Escrow is also known in the judicial context. So-called escrow funds are commonly used to distribute money from a cash settlement in a class action or environmental enforcement action. This way the defendant is not responsible for distribution of judgment monies to the individual plaintiffs or the court-determined use (such as environmental remediation or mitigation). The defendant pays the total amount of the judgment (or settlement) to the court-administered or appointed escrow fund, and the fund distributes the money (often reimbursing its expenses from the judgment funds).

Escrow is also used in the field of automated banking and vending equipment. One example is automated teller machines (ATMs), and is the function which allows the machine to hold the money deposited by the customer separately, and in case he or she challenges the counting result, the money is returned. Another example is a vending machine, where the customer's money is held in a separate escrow area pending successful completion of the transaction. If a problem occurs and the customer presses the refund button, the coins are returned from escrow; if no problem occurs, they fall into the coin vault.

Source code escrow agents hold source code of software in escrow just as other escrow companies hold cash. The highly valuable (and often secret) source code is only released by the agent to either party upon specific terms of the escrow agreement (such as failure to maintain the application, transfer of ownership of the intellectual property rights, or the liquidation of the owner of the source code)..