The guarantee period is where fees die

The placement is done. The candidate started, the client paid, the fee landed. Everyone exhales. And it's exactly now, in the quiet weeks after the start date, that the fee is most at risk.

The guarantee period is the stretch, usually thirty to ninety days, where the hire can still come apart and the money can still be pulled back. Most recruiters treat it as a formality. The ones who've been clawed back once never do again.

Why fall-offs are worse than no deal

A deal that never closes costs you time. A fall-off costs you money you already spent. The fee was collected, allocated, maybe already paid out. Now the client wants it back, and the question of who returns what, by when, out of whose pocket, lands on two recruiters who thought this deal was finished.

In a split it's worse, because the refund path runs through whoever collected. If the money went to your partner's account and has already been spent, you are now negotiating a refund with someone's bank balance. That negotiation has no good version.

The terms that decide the worst week

None of this needs a lawyer. It needs to be written before the candidate starts, while everyone still likes each other.

• Refund or replacement, picked in advance. "We'll figure it out" is not a policy.
• A pro-rated schedule. Full refund in week one, half by week six, nothing after day ninety. Graduated terms are fairer and far easier to enforce.
• What triggers it. The candidate resigns versus the client restructures are different events, and some agreements treat them differently.
• When the fee is actually released. If the money can leave before the guarantee lapses, someone is carrying refund risk they may not know about.

Escrow changes the physics

When the client pays into a neutral escrow account, the guarantee period stops being a threat and becomes a timer. The fee sits in the account, visible to both sides, until the guarantee lapses. If the hire sticks, the money releases to each desk on the schedule already signed. If the hire falls off, the refund goes back from the same pot, per the same terms. Nobody returns money they already spent, because nobody had it yet.

That's the whole trick. You can't claw back money that was never released, and you can't fight over terms that were written down before anyone was angry.

On the rail

On PlaceRail the fall-off terms are part of the deal setup, not an afterthought: guarantee length, refund schedule, release dates. The escrowed fee holds through the guarantee and releases automatically when it lapses. The worst week in recruiting becomes a notification, not a feud.