[Europa] NUMBER ONE Success System

[Tommy Lee]

http://www.noss123.com/


*Estate agent* is a United Kingdom term roughly synonymous in the United
States with the term real estate broker, a business that arranges the
selling, renting or management of homes, land and other buildings. However
in many instances, estate agents are mainly engaged in the marketing of
property available for sale and a solicitor is used to prepare and exchange
contracts. In Scotland, however, many solicitors also act as estate agents,
a practice that is rare in England and Wales.

It should be noted that, in Ireland, *real estate* is generally referred to
simply as *property*.

In the United Kingdom residential estate agents are largely unregulated
(although legal provision exists to introduce regulation). Some estate
agents are members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS),
the principal body for UK real estate professionals. However, the vast
majority of RICS members — known as Chartered Surveyors — who practice
estate agency do so on commercial property.

For residential property a trade association, the National Association of
Estate Agents (NAEA), exists, but as a non-professional body it has limited
scope for disciplining members when appropriate. The *Ombudsman for Estate
Agents Scheme*[1], which obtained the British Government's Office of Fair
Trading (OFT) approval for the *Code of Practice for Residential Sales* in
2005 and, as of November 2006, claims to have 2532 member agencies.
Companies such as Homefinders www.homefinders.net are members of all these
schemes.

There is no legal requirement to belong to either organisation in order to
trade as an estate agent. Due to the lack of effective regulation, dishonest
and fraudulent practices may exist in the industry[2].
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