Escrow Policies: Where the Auto-Release Window Lives

Negotiating policies per deal is how disputes start. "I thought the inspection window was 14 days, you thought it was 7." Setting the policies once at the platform level — and showing them clearly to both parties at deal-time — is how disputes get prevented.

What the H7 policies page configures

/escrow/policies (platform_owner only) houses: auto-release window (days from goods-received to auto-release if no acceptance and no dispute), dispute window (days from goods-received during which a dispute can still be filed), fee structure (percentages per outcome, tiered if applicable), deposit policy (when a deposit is required, how the deposit is applied to the eventual escrow), and general terms (the boilerplate that attaches to every escrow).

Per-tenant scoping

Each tenant has its own policy set. Default values come from the platform; tenants can override within bounds (the platform sets a max fee percentage, for example, and tenants can set lower but not higher). Changes are audit-logged and effective from the timestamp of the save — escrows already open use the policy that was active when they were created.

Visibility to deal participants

At deal close, both parties see the active policy: the auto-release window in days, the dispute window, the fee they’ll pay (with a live calculator that shows the platform fee for the deal’s amount), and the general terms. There’s no policy negotiation per deal; the policy is the policy. Buyer and seller acknowledge by clicking through, and the acknowledgment is logged.

What the policy doesn’t do

It doesn’t set the deal price, the assets, the shipping arrangement — those are deal-level decisions. The policy is purely about the escrow mechanics. Separating the two means the seller and buyer negotiate the deal, the platform handles the escrow, and nobody’s lawyer needs to read the policy text twice.