An escrow account is a temporary pass through account held by a third party during the process of a transaction between two parties.

Definition: An escrow account is a temporary pass through account held by a third party during the process of a transaction between two parties. This is a temporary account as it operates until the completion of a transaction process, which is implemented after all the conditions between the buyer and the seller are settled.

Description: In real estate, the fund flows for the development of the project from any source is kept in the escrow account and the funds utilised for the same are also generated from the escrow account. Even the buyers of the housing units in a project transfer the home price to the escrow account and the amount is not transferred to the seller until the project is completed.

Sometimes the construction linked payments are disbursed to the seller from the escrow account so that the builder has sufficient funds for completion of the project. Sellers also benefit from the prioritization mechanism, also called waterfall mechanism, wherein the priority based payments are made to the concerned parties.