What does 'Sole Agency' mean when buying a property?

Find out what Sole Agency means when you are buying a property. 'What does Sole Agency mean?' plus over 150 other property related terms and jargon in plain English

Sole Agency

When a property is on the market with only one estate agent it is sole agency.

Estate agents like to shout about this in their listings (which is why you often see it mentioned) because they are basically saying "If you want to buy this property you have to do it through us".

The term is also of relevance to the vendor because most agents will charge the vendor a higher fee if another agent is also instructed. They have one fee for "Sole Agency" and a higher fee for 'Multiple Agency'.

When the property is on the market with two agents it is occasionally referred to as 'Joint Sole Agency' because that sounds posher than "Multiple Agency".

Estate agents may also have a special fee for "Joint Sole Agency" which might be the same as their "Sole Agency" fee or somewhere in between "Sole Agency" and "Multiple Agency.

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