Free escrow protection on every transaction

How OriginSpace keeps your renovation money safe.

OriginSpace connects Singapore homeowners with designers, material suppliers, and furniture manufacturers in mainland China, plus licensed Singapore contractors. Cross-border renovation has a real trust problem: customers are asked to wire large sums to suppliers they have never met. Escrow is how we fix that. Your payment is held by OriginSpace until the work is done.

How escrow works

Step 1: You pay in SGD
Every milestone is collected in Singapore dollars via Stripe. Your card details never leave Stripe — OriginSpace only sees the milestone reference and amount.
Step 2: We hold the funds
Your payment sits in OriginSpace's escrow account, not the supplier's. Suppliers and contractors cannot withdraw money on demand. They have to earn it milestone by milestone.
Step 3: 5-day admin hold per milestone
Once a milestone is paid, we wait 5 business days before releasing it to the supplier or contractor. This window gives you time to flag any issue (defective goods, missed deadlines) and gives us time to investigate.
Step 4: Released only after the work is done
For design services: 50% on proposal acceptance, 50% on delivery acceptance. For materials and furniture: 30% on order, 70% before shipment. For local contractors: a custom milestone schedule that you and the contractor agree on (default 30/40/30) — final milestone requires a completion certificate and photos.

Milestone splits by order type

Design service

50% downpayment on proposal acceptance, 50% on delivery acceptance.

50 / 50

Materials

30% downpayment on order confirmation, 70% balance before the China warehouse ships.

30 / 70

Furniture

30% downpayment on order confirmation, 70% balance before the China warehouse ships.

30 / 70

Singapore contractor

Customer defines the schedule at acceptance (default 30/40/30, between 2 and 10 milestones). The contractor must confirm the schedule before any order is created.

Custom

What it costs you

There is no escrow fee charged to the customer.
There is no service fee charged to the customer.
Customers pay exactly the quoted price. The 7% platform + transaction fee is deducted from the supplier or contractor settlement.
Singapore GST (9%) is collected by Stripe Tax at checkout.

If something goes wrong: dispute resolution

Any time at least one milestone has been paid (so escrow is holding funds) and the order is not yet fully complete, you can raise a dispute from the order page. Raising a dispute freezes the order: the next milestone cannot be requested until the dispute is resolved.

You upload evidence (photos, videos, written description). The supplier or contractor responds. OriginSpace reviews the case and resolves it with one of four outcomes:

Full refund — escrowed funds are returned to you (less the 7% platform fee retained for accounting).
Full release — escrowed funds are released to the supplier or contractor (less the 7% platform fee).
Partial split — escrowed funds are split between you and the supplier or contractor in a ratio set by OriginSpace based on the evidence.
No action — the dispute is closed without payment movement (for example, after parties reach a private agreement).

For materials and furniture, you have 7 days from the "delivered" status to raise a goods-inspection dispute. For design and contractor services, disputes can be raised any time before you confirm delivery.

Read the full dispute policy

Ready to brief your project? Escrow is on by default.

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