How escrow funds are handled at Milestone Title
- Deposits are held in segregated escrow trust accounts — never commingled with operating funds
- Disbursements follow the contract and the settlement statement, in writing, with dual review
- Account reconciliation follows the three-way discipline the title industry's best-practices framework calls for: bank balance, book balance, and individual file ledgers
- Incoming and outgoing wires follow verified-instruction procedures — no instruction changes accepted by email alone, ever
- Every file's ledger is auditable end to end
Deposits, deadlines, and disputes
Florida purchase contracts tie the deposit to precise deadlines — inspection periods, financing contingencies, closing dates. When a deal dies, who gets the deposit is a legal question controlled by the contract's language and how the parties performed. As escrow holder we act on written instructions or the contract's express terms; when the parties disagree, the dispute needs legal handling, and the law firm can advise a party under a separate engagement (or the deposit is handled through the procedures the contract and Florida law provide).
The practical advice: calendar your contingency deadlines the day you sign, and put every extension in writing. Most deposit fights are missed-deadline fights.
Wire fraud: the threat we engineer against
Business email compromise targeting real estate escrow is the most damaging consumer fraud in the industry. Our procedures — verified instructions, callback confirmation on the number we independently hold, staff training, and consumer warnings on every touchpoint — exist because the threat is real and constant. Read our wire fraud protection page before you send any money to anyone, including us.