Settlement Agent

When you sell your rusty chainsaw at a garage sale, you can work out the sale yourself. A buyer gives over the cash, you handover the chainsaw. Deal done.

However, more complicated transactions, or transactions involving more complex assets, might require someone in the middle to facilitate the transaction. That facilitator is known as the settlement agent.

They help the two parties complete the transaction, moving cash from one side to the other, and assets the other way. They become useful in situations where knotty legal niceties have to play out during the process...things that could be messed up if a knowledgeable party isn't in the middle, directing traffic.