An estate agent is a person or business that arranges the selling, renting or management of properties, and other buildings, in the United Kingdom and Ireland. An agent that specialises in renting is often called a letting or management agent. Estate agents are mainly engaged in the marketing of property available for sale and a solicitor or licensed conveyancer is used to prepare the legal documents. In Scotland, however, many solicitors also act as estate agents, a practice that is rare in England and Wales.
It is customary in the United Kingdom and in Ireland to refer to real estate or real property simply as property.
The estate agent remains the current title for the person responsible for the management of one group of privately owned, all or mostly tenanted, properties under one ownership. Alternative titles are Factor, Steward or Bailiff depending on the era, the region and the extent of the property concerned.
Read more about Estate Agent: Origin, Regulation, Industrial Structure, Technology, 'Estate Agent Speak'
Famous quotes containing the words estate and/or agent:
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The quiet mind is richer than a crown;
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent,
The poor estate scorns Fortune’s angry frown.
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss,
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss.”
—Robert Greene (1558?–1592)
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—Bill Cosby (20th century)