Hints to househunters and householders / by Ernest Turner.

  • Turner, Ernest.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hints to househunters and householders / by Ernest Turner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    169/210 (page 147)
    As a rule, the less he believes of what either of them say, the better for his ultimate peace of mind and comfort of body. People are too apt to con- sider that agents—other people’s agents of course —are persons whose business it is to give all re- quired information about the property. This is pure delusion. It cannot be too clearly realised that an agent is simply a person whose business it is to sell or let the property at the highest price he can by legitimate means get for it. And the recognised limits of “ legitimacy” are in this case very wide and exceedingly elastic. The licence practically assumed is, it need hardly be said, considerably wider, and of an elasticity as nearly as possible exhaustive. And the law’s maxim, be it observed, is caveat emptor. The childlike confidence which says, “ Oh, Mr. Plausible, are not these walls very damp?” and accepts with enthusiasm Mr. P.’s assurance that the great green stains are due solely to per- verted ingenuity on the part of the paperhanger, is very touching and very sweet, but will not obtain a subsequent verdict in a court of law. So, too, with what would seem on the surface to be actual plain statements of fact. No one has any practical idea of the extent to which the noble art of ambiguity can be carried till he has gone— and gone intelligently—through several experiences of this kind. In saying nothing, with an air of absolute authority a really good agent might give lessons to the authors of the Queen’s Speeches. L 2