An escrow agent may disburse escrow money only when prior deposits are at least equal to the disbursement and directly tied to the transaction, with limited exceptions.
6-843 - Disbursements; applicability 6-843. Disbursements; applicability A. Except as provided by subsection B of this section, an escrow agent may only disburse money out of an escrow account if deposits are previously made that are at least equal to the disbursements and the deposits relate directly to the transaction for which the money is being disbursed. The deposits shall be in at least one of the following forms: 1. Wire transfers so that the monies are received by the escrow agent or the agent's depository. 2. Except as provided in paragraphs 1, 4 and 5 of this subsection, checks, drafts, negotiable orders of withdrawal, money orders or any other item that has become available for withdrawal in accordance with the federal expedited funds availability act (P.L. 100-86; 101 Stat. 635; 12 United States Code section 4001). 3. Credit transfers through the automated clearing house that are deemed available by the depository institution receiving the credits. The credits must conform to the operating rules set forth by a national automated clearing house association. 4. Cashier's checks, certified checks or teller's checks that have been deposited in the escrow agent's depository account. 5. Checks made by an affiliate of a state or federally regulated depository institution where the check is drawn on the affiliated depository institution so that the monies are deposited in the escrow agent's depository account. 6. Distributed ledger technology transfers within or among a secure network of federally insured depository institutions where disbursements are recorded on a ledger and securely deposited in an escrow agent's depository account. A depository institution shall settle transfers by using an established national clearing house network, except that transfers may not be settled or backed by a central bank digital currency. Distributed ledger technology transfers shall be fully settled, irrevocably credited and transferred in United States dollars. For the purposes of this paragraph, "distributed ledger technology" means a decentralized, shared and immutable ledger, which may be public or private, permissioned or permissionless, or driven by tokenized crypto economics or tokenless. The ledger must be tamper resistant and protected with cryptography to preserve the data. For the purposes of this paragraph, a transfer, whether tokenized or tokenless, must maintain price stability by backing the value of the transferred digital asset to United States dollars that is redeemable on a one-to-one basis. B. An escrow agent may disburse up to $500 per transaction or any funds that are available as cash without complying with subsection A of this section. C. Subsection A of this section does not apply to account servicing.