ValuQ Property Glossary
Estate agent terms
Estate agency has a language of its own, and most of it was never designed with the seller in mind. Every term an agent, a listing or an agency contract will put in front of you, in plain English.
68 terms · Last reviewed 24 July 2026.
Market appraisal
Also known as: valuation visit, free valuation
A market appraisal is an estate agent's opinion of what your home would sell for, given free in the hope of winning your instruction.
It is a sales pitch as well as a number. It is not a formal RICS valuation and no lender relies on it.
What to watch: The highest appraisal is not automatically the most accurate one. An inflated number that wins the instruction can cost you months on the market.
Related: Instruction, Red Book valuation · Why agents overvalue properties →
Instruction
An instruction is a seller formally appointing an estate agent to market their home.
When agents talk about winning instructions, they mean winning the right to sell your house. The instruction belongs to you, and you choose who gets it.
Related: Sole agency, Market appraisal
Vendor
The vendor is the person selling the property.
Solicitors and agents use it interchangeably with seller. Nothing more technical than that.
Applicant
An applicant is anyone registered with an estate agent as looking to buy.
When an agent says they have applicants waiting for homes like yours, they mean people on their mailing list. Ask how many have viewed similar homes recently rather than taking the list on faith.
Related: Buyer registration
Sole agency
Sole agency is an agreement giving one estate agent the exclusive right to sell your home for a set period.
You pay nothing if you find a buyer entirely yourself. It is the most common arrangement and usually carries the lowest fee.
What to watch: Check the tie-in length before signing. A long tie-in with the wrong agent can trap your sale for months.
Related: Sole selling rights, Tie-in period, Multi-agency · Sole agency agreements explained →
Sole selling rights
Sole selling rights mean the agent earns their fee however a buyer is found during the agreement, including a buyer you find yourself.
It is a stronger position for the agent than sole agency, and the difference is easy to miss in a contract.
What to watch: If the agreement says sole selling rights, you pay the fee even if your neighbour's cousin buys the house with no agent involved.
Related: Sole agency
Joint sole agency
Joint sole agency is two agents formally sharing one instruction and splitting an agreed fee between them.
Sometimes used for unusual homes needing both a local and a specialist agent. The combined fee is usually higher than a single sole agency.
Related: Sole agency, Multi-agency
Multi-agency
Multi-agency is instructing two or more estate agents at once, with only the agent who sells earning the fee.
It widens exposure but the fee is higher, and a listing appearing with several agents can read as a struggling sale.
What to watch: Overlapping agency periods are the classic route to a dual fee claim, where two agents both say they introduced the buyer.
Related: Dual fee risk, Effective introduction
Tie-in period
Also known as: agency term, minimum term
The tie-in period is the minimum time an agency agreement locks you to one estate agent.
During it you cannot instruct another agent without risking two fees. Lengths vary widely between agencies.
What to watch: A long tie-in plus a notice period on top can keep you tied well beyond the number you remember agreeing to. Read both numbers together.
Related: Notice period (agency agreement), Sole agency · Getting out of an agency contract →
Notice period (agency agreement)
The notice period is how long you must wait after telling your agent you are leaving before the agreement actually ends.
It usually runs on top of the tie-in, commonly a couple of weeks. Give notice in writing and keep a copy.
Related: Tie-in period
14-day cooling-off right
Also known as: cancellation right, Consumer Contracts Regulations
The 14-day cooling-off right lets you cancel an agency contract signed in your own home within 14 days without penalty.
It comes from the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, which cover contracts signed away from the agent's premises, and the agent must tell you about it.
What to watch: If you ask the agent to start marketing immediately inside the 14 days, you can owe for work done before you cancelled. Cancel in writing.
Related: Tie-in period
Ready, willing and able purchaser clause
Also known as: RWA clause
A ready, willing and able purchaser clause makes you liable for the agent's fee if they find a qualified buyer, even if you decide not to sell.
It is one of the few ways a seller can owe a full fee with no completed sale.
What to watch: The Property Ombudsman's code requires this clause to be explained prominently. If you spot one, question it before signing rather than after.
Related: Withdrawal fee, No sale, no fee
Withdrawal fee
A withdrawal fee is a charge some agencies apply if you take your home off the market before the agreement ends.
Not universal, and always something you can question before signing. It should be stated plainly in the agreement, not discovered on the way out.
Related: Ready, willing and able purchaser clause, Tie-in period
Dual fee risk
Dual fee risk is the danger of owing commission to two estate agents for the same sale because both claim to have introduced the buyer.
It usually happens when a seller switches agents and a viewer from the first agent later buys through the second.
What to watch: When changing agents, get a written list of everyone the outgoing agent introduced, and give it to the new one. That list settles most disputes before they start.
Related: Effective introduction, Multi-agency
Effective introduction
An effective introduction is the legal test of which agent actually caused a buyer to purchase, deciding who earned the fee.
Courts look at whose work truly brought the buyer to the deal, not just who showed them the house first.
Related: Dual fee risk
Commission (percentage fee)
Also known as: agent's fee, percentage fee
Commission is the estate agent's fee calculated as a percentage of the final sale price, payable when the sale completes.
Quoted rates vary with the property and the market. Always confirm whether a quoted rate includes VAT, because a rate quoted without it is a fifth bigger than it sounds.
Related: Fixed fee, No sale, no fee · Estate agent fees guide →
Fixed fee
A fixed fee is an agreed flat charge for selling your home, whatever price it fetches.
Common with online agents. A fixed fee paid upfront is owed whether or not the home sells, which changes the agent's incentive to see the sale through.
Related: Upfront fee, Online and hybrid agents
No sale, no fee
No sale, no fee means the agent is paid only if your home actually sells.
The standard high-street arrangement, and the one that keeps the agent's interests closest to yours.
Related: Upfront fee, Ready, willing and able purchaser clause · No sale, no fee explained →
Upfront fee
An upfront fee is payment to an agent before the home sells, common with online listing packages.
The saving is real if the home sells easily. The risk is paying in full for a sale that never happens.
Related: Fixed fee, No sale, no fee
Referral fees
A referral fee is a payment an estate agent receives for recommending a conveyancer, mortgage broker, surveyor or removals firm.
Legal, but the agent must disclose it. It explains why some recommendations arrive so enthusiastically.
What to watch: Compare any recommended service against two independent quotes. The recommended one is sometimes dearer by roughly the size of the referral fee.
Related: Conveyancing fee · Should I use the agent's solicitor? →
Online and hybrid agents
Also known as: internet agent
An online agent sells your home for a fixed fee handled remotely, while a hybrid agent adds some local, in-person service on top.
Cheaper on paper than percentage commission. The trade-offs sit in viewings, negotiation and chasing the sale through to completion.
Related: High street agent, Upfront fee · Online vs high street agents →
High street agent
A high street agent is a traditional estate agency with a local office, staff who conduct viewings, and a no sale, no fee percentage commission.
Their case is local knowledge and hands-on sales progression. Their fee reflects it.
Related: Online and hybrid agents
Buying agent
A buying agent is a professional hired by a buyer to find and negotiate a property on their behalf.
Common at the top of the market. If one appears in your sale, you are dealing with a professional negotiator rather than the buyer directly.
Off-market sale
Also known as: discreet marketing, quiet sale
An off-market sale is a home sold without ever being publicly advertised, offered privately to selected buyers instead.
Used for privacy or to test appetite. The trade-off is fewer competing buyers, and competition is what pushes a price up.
Asking price
The asking price is the figure a home is publicly marketed at, chosen by the seller on the agent's advice.
It is an invitation, not a valuation. Buyers can offer below it, at it, or above it.
Related: Guide price, Offers in excess of (OIEO) · Valuation vs asking price →
Guide price
A guide price is an indicative figure a property is expected to sell around, used where the final price is genuinely uncertain.
Common on unusual homes and standard at auction, where the reserve must sit close to it.
Related: Guide price (auction), Asking price
Offers in excess of (OIEO)
Also known as: offers over
Offers in excess of means the seller wants bids above the stated figure.
The number is a floor, not a target. In practice buyers sometimes still offer below it, and sellers sometimes accept.
Related: Offers in the region of (OIRO), Asking price
Offers in the region of (OIRO)
Offers in the region of signals the seller will consider bids close to the stated figure, a little above or below.
Softer than a fixed asking price. It invites negotiation from the first conversation.
Related: Offers in excess of (OIEO)
Price on application (POA)
Price on application means the price is deliberately unpublished, and buyers must contact the agent to learn it.
Used for privacy at the top of the market. For most homes it simply adds friction, and buyers tend to scroll past what they cannot filter.
Fixed price (Scotland)
In Scotland, a fixed price listing means the seller will accept the first offer at the stated figure.
Different from the more common offers over format in Scottish marketing, where a closing date and blind bids often follow.
Related: Missives (Scotland)
Open market value
Open market value is the price a property should achieve between a willing buyer and willing seller, neither under pressure, after proper marketing.
The standard every valuation aims at. Distress, speed or a private deal all move a price away from it.
Related: Red Book valuation
Sales particulars
Also known as: property particulars, listing details
Sales particulars are the official written description of a property for sale: measurements, rooms, photographs and key facts.
Consumer protection law requires them to be accurate and not misleading, and you approve them before marketing starts.
What to watch: Check the particulars line by line before going live. An error found by a buyer's solicitor months later can reopen the price negotiation.
Related: Material information
Material information
Material information is anything a buyer needs to make an informed decision, which agents are required to include in listings.
Price, tenure, council tax band, and known issues like flood risk or restrictive covenants all qualify under trading standards rules.
Related: Sales particulars · Material information rules →
Floorplan
A floorplan is the scale diagram of a property's layout and room sizes included in the listing.
Listings with floorplans hold buyer attention measurably better, and serious buyers use the square footage to compare value between homes.
Virtual tour
Also known as: 360 tour, video tour
A virtual tour is an online walkthrough of a property, filmed or built from 360-degree photography.
It filters out casual viewers before they reach your doorstep, which makes the viewings that do happen more serious.
Home staging and dressing
Home staging is preparing and furnishing a home specifically to photograph and view well for sale.
Ranges from decluttering to hired furniture. The photography is the shop window; staging is stocking it.
Kerb appeal
Kerb appeal is how attractive a property looks from the street at first sight.
First impressions form before the front door opens. Tidy frontage, clean windows and a painted door are the cheapest value-adds in the book.
Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)
Also known as: energy certificate, EPC rating
An Energy Performance Certificate rates a home's energy efficiency from A to G and is legally required before marketing a property for sale.
Valid for 10 years, so an existing one may still cover your sale. Buyers increasingly read the rating as a running-costs forecast.
Related: EPC cost · Do I need an EPC to sell? →
Property portal
A property portal is a website that aggregates listings from many estate agents into one searchable place.
Portals advertise homes; they do not sell them. Your agent, not the portal, answers to you.
For sale board
A for sale board is the agent's sign outside your home, and it still generates enquiries from neighbours and passers-by.
Entirely optional. Tell the agent if you would rather sell without one.
Open house
An open house is a set day when multiple buyers view a property in overlapping slots rather than one at a time.
It concentrates interest and can spark competing offers on well-priced homes. It also saves weeks of scattered single viewings.
Related: Best and final offers
Accompanied viewing
An accompanied viewing is one the estate agent conducts, with or without the seller present.
Buyers speak more freely to an agent than to an owner, and honest feedback is worth more than politeness.
Related: Viewing feedback
Viewing feedback
Viewing feedback is what buyers tell the agent after seeing your home, reported back to you.
Patterns matter more than individual comments. Three mentions of the same issue is information; one is opinion.
Buyer registration
Also known as: mailing list, applicant list
Buyer registration is how house-hunters sign up with an agent to hear about matching homes, sometimes before they are listed.
A genuinely maintained buyer list can produce viewings in the first days of marketing. Ask the agent how many registered buyers match your home.
Related: Applicant
Sealed bids
Sealed bids are single confidential offers from each competing buyer, submitted by a deadline, with the seller free to choose any of them.
Used when demand outruns supply. The seller is not obliged to take the highest, and buying position often beats a slightly bigger number.
Related: Best and final offers, Informal tender
Best and final offers
Also known as: highest and best
Best and final offers is a request for every interested buyer to submit their single top offer by a deadline.
It resolves competing interest cleanly. Despite the name, negotiation can quietly continue afterwards; nothing is binding until exchange.
Related: Sealed bids
Under offer
Under offer means the seller has accepted an offer but the sale is not yet legally binding.
Used loosely and interchangeably with sold subject to contract. Either way, the legal work has only just begun.
Related: Sold subject to contract (SSTC)
Sold subject to contract (SSTC)
Also known as: sold STC
Sold subject to contract means an offer has been accepted but contracts have not been exchanged, so either side can still walk away.
The listing usually stays visible with an SSTC label. Expect weeks of conveyancing between SSTC and a binding exchange.
Related: Exchange of contracts, Fall-through · What SSTC really means →
Withdrawn from market
Withdrawn means a listing has been taken off the market without selling.
Sellers withdraw to wait for a better season, retry with a new agent, or rethink the price. It is a pause, not a verdict.
Related: Relisting
Relisting
Relisting is putting a withdrawn or fallen-through property back on the market, sometimes with a new agent, price or photographs.
Portals show buyers a listing's history, so a straight repeat rarely lands. Change something real before going again.
Related: Withdrawn from market, Fall-through
Chain
A chain is a line of linked property sales where each purchase depends on the one below it completing.
Everyone in the chain moves on the same day, and the whole line moves at the speed of its slowest member.
What to watch: Ask where your buyer sits in their chain before accepting. A short chain is worth real money in saved time and risk.
Related: Chain-free / no onward chain, Fall-through · When a chain collapses →
Chain-free / no onward chain
Chain-free means a sale that does not depend on any other transaction completing.
First-time buyers, cash buyers, and sellers who have already moved out are chain-free. It is one of the strongest cards in any negotiation.
Related: Chain, Proceedable
Proceedable
A proceedable buyer is one in a position to move forward now: finance arranged and nothing to sell, or their own sale already agreed.
Agents grade buyers by it. A lower offer from a proceedable buyer often beats a higher one from someone who has not even listed.
Related: Buying position, Cash buyer
Cash buyer
A cash buyer can pay the full price without a mortgage.
No lender means no mortgage valuation and one less way for the sale to fail. Genuine cash should be evidenced, not just claimed.
What to watch: Ask for proof of funds early. Some self-described cash buyers turn out to mean cash once something else sells.
Related: Proof of funds · Cash buyer or mortgage buyer? →
First-time buyer
Also known as: FTB
A first-time buyer is someone who has never owned a property, here or abroad.
Chain-free by definition and eligible for stamp duty relief, which makes them strong buyers for homes at the right price points.
Related: First-time buyer relief, Chain-free / no onward chain
Motivated seller
A motivated seller is agent shorthand for someone who needs to sell rather than merely wants to, and may accept less for speed.
If an agent describes you this way to buyers, expect lower offers. How your circumstances are presented is worth an explicit conversation.
Probate sale
A probate sale is the sale of a home belonging to someone who has died, handled by their executors.
It cannot complete until the grant of probate is issued, which buyers should be told upfront. Often unmodernised, and priced accordingly.
Related: Probate and grant of probate · Selling an inherited house →
Repossession sale
A repossession sale is a lender selling a property taken back from a borrower who could not keep up the mortgage.
The lender must achieve the best price reasonably obtainable, but wants speed. Listings can remain open to further offers right up to exchange.
Tenant in situ
Also known as: tenanted sale, sold with tenants
A tenant in situ sale is a property sold with the existing tenants staying, their tenancy transferring to the buyer.
The market is mostly other landlords, which changes both the price and the marketing. Selling with vacant possession usually fetches more.
Related: Sitting tenant, Vacant possession
Sitting tenant
A sitting tenant is someone with a legal right to remain living in a property when it is sold.
Older regulated tenancies can give lifetime security and reduce a property's market value substantially. Specialist advice territory.
Related: Tenant in situ
Vacant possession
Vacant possession means the property will be empty of people and belongings when the buyer completes.
The standard promise in most sale contracts. Leaving furniture or a relative behind on completion day is a breach of it.
Related: Completion
Memorandum of sale
A memorandum of sale is the agent's document confirming an agreed sale: price, parties, solicitors and any conditions.
Sent to both sides' solicitors to start the legal work. It is a record, not a contract; nothing in it binds anyone yet.
Related: Sale agreed, Exchange of contracts
Sales progression
Also known as: progressor
Sales progression is the work of chasing an agreed sale through conveyancing to completion: solicitors, surveys, mortgage and chain.
The unglamorous half of estate agency, and where good agents earn their fee. Ask who will personally progress your sale before you instruct.
Related: Chain, Fall-through
Propertymark (NAEA)
Propertymark is the professional body for estate agents, whose members follow its conduct rules and hold client money protection.
Membership is voluntary, so it signals an agent choosing to be held to a standard. The NAEA is its estate agency arm.
Related: Redress scheme, Client money protection
Redress scheme
Also known as: The Property Ombudsman, TPO, PRS
A redress scheme is the independent complaints body every UK estate agent must belong to by law, empowered to order compensation.
The two schemes are The Property Ombudsman and the Property Redress Scheme. Free for consumers, used after the agent's own complaints process.
Related: Propertymark (NAEA) · Property redress schemes →
Client money protection
Also known as: CMP
Client money protection is insurance that reimburses you if a property agent misuses money they hold on your behalf.
Most relevant where an agent holds deposits or rent. In a standard sale your money flows through solicitors, not the agent.
Listing language, decoded
Also known as: deceptively spacious, in need of modernisation, cosy, characterful, up-and-coming, scope for improvement
Listing language is the set of stock phrases property adverts use, each carrying a fairly settled real-world meaning.
In need of modernisation and scope for improvement signal real work, priced in. Deceptively spacious means bigger inside than it looks. Cosy means small. Characterful means period features, likely with period maintenance. Up-and-coming means the area is improving but not there yet. None of these are tricks; they are compressed honesty, and reading them well makes you a sharper viewer.
Know the language. Keep the control.
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