Estate agent owned, all or mostly tenanted properties under one ownership. Alternative titles are Factor, Steward, or Bailiff, depending on the era, region, and extent of the property concerned. The term originally referred to a person responsible for managing a landed estate, while those engaged in the buying and selling of homes were ""House Agents"", and those selling land were "Land Agents". However, in the 20th century, ""Estate Agent"" started to be used as a generic term. Estate agent is roughly synonymous with the United States term real estate broker. Estate agents need to be familiar with their local area, including factors
Estate agent for Estate Agents Scheme", which obtained OFT approval for the "Code of Practice for Residential Sales" in and, as of November 2006 claims to have 2,532 member agencies. There is a legal requirement to belong to either organisation to trade as an estate agent. Agents can be fined if they are not a member of a redress scheme. The redress scheme was brought in alongside and to govern agents in reference to the HIP (Home Information Pack). A handful of national residential estate agents chains exist, with the majority being locally or regionally specialised companies. Several multi-national commercial agencies exist,