Just My Reponse To A Question?
Posted by Debo on August 15th, 2009
Question:
What is this about houses on sale with multiple Estate Agents’ board on them. Is it really professional to have upward of two surveyor’s board on a property?
Answer:
The sixth edition of Barron’s Real Estate Guides Dictionary of Real Estate Terms define an Agent as one who undertakes to transact some business or to manage some affair for another, with the authority of the latter.
The same dictionary define Agency as the legal relationship between a principal and his AGENT arising from a contract in which the principal engages the agent to perform certain acts on the principal’s behalf.
One of my mentors in a says Agency is a situation where a person or party holds himself out to a third party on behalf of the owner, that is, the agent steps into the shoes of the owner.
The law of Agency deals not just with one legal relationship (that of principal and agent) but all three.
The multiple board issue is usually a result of multiply type of agency.
There are four types of agency and multiple agency is such that a Principal enters into an agency relationship with more than one Agent over the same property. It is an all comers affair and a game of chance. This usually result in the agent’s trying to outdo one another in closing the deal. Although there are regulations and policy statements by concerned professional bodies discouraging this practice, the result has not been commensurate and the industry still needs to be better sanitised that way.
Note however that it is first a creation of the Principal who thinks he stands to close his deal faster that way. Whether it works out to his advantage or otherwise is a talk for another day.