The Multilingual Dictionary of Real Estate

This is a book for the Single European Market (SEM) and for the real estate professionals operating within it. The real estate industry is europeanising rapidly in anticipation of the SEM; this process is not, in the near future at least, the product of harmonisation of procedures and terminology so much as the development of expertise in handling the different national systems and the non-tariff barriers they present. This guide is designed to help the real estate professionals develop this expertise. The objective of this guide is to offer real estate professionals a glossary of specialist and technical terminology, guidance on interpretation where dictionary translations may not be true equivalents, and advice on where to look for more detailed information. Users are assumed to have a knowledge of the language of the country in which they intend to practice, but to be seeking assistance with specialist terminology which is normally beyond the scope of foreign language courses and general dictionaries. Real estate and planning terminology are notorious for attaching specialist meanings to words which also have everyday meanings. These specialist meanings must be understood if confusion is to be avoided. Furthermore, each country has its own national style of professional practice, reflected in its terminology, derived from both the cultural and the legal context of professional practice in that country. Straight translations therefore can easily fail to convey the true meaning of terms in their professional practice context. What makes this guide much more than a glossary of terms in translation, are the explanations wherever these problems may arise.