315 Lithia Avenue, St Louis
What's a Designated Agent?
The Missouri Broker Disclosure Form is something all real estate buyers and sellers should be given to eliminate confusion. Unfortunately, the basic description given on the form usually doesn't shed much light on what the difference between designated agents and buyer's or seller's agents.
To understand what a designated agent is, it helps to understand that prior to the creation of 'designated agency', if a buyer's agent and seller's agent on a transaction worked for the same brokerage, then 'dual agency' existed regardless of whether the agents involved had any relationship or knowledge of each other. For small brokerages, it wasn't a problem, but for the large brokerages with hundreds of agents, dual agency was something they wanted to avoid if possible. As a result, 'designated agency' was created.
Designated agents can represent buyer's or seller's. They are appointed by the 'designated broker' to represent their clients. In this arrangment, another designated agent that works for the same broker can represent the other side of the transaction without being in dual agency unless the broker is involved in the transaction.