Glossary
Release Condition
A release condition is the specific, predefined event that triggers an escrow holder to release whatever it's holding — delivery confirmed, a milestone verified, a specified date reached. This has to be defined precisely enough that the neutral holder can evaluate it objectively, without needing to exercise judgment about a dispute between the two original parties, which would defeat the entire point of using a neutral holder in the first place.
A vaguely specified release condition — 'when the work is satisfactorily complete,' with no further definition of what satisfactory actually means — pushes exactly the judgment call escrow was meant to avoid back onto the escrow holder, or onto the two disputing parties who are, by definition, the ones who don't currently agree. The condition's value as an objective trigger is entirely a function of how precisely and unambiguously it was actually written.