In Scotland a factor (or property manager) is a person or firm charged with superintending or managing properties and estates—sometimes where the owner or landlord is unable to or uninterested in attending to such details personally, or in tenements in which several owners of individual flats contribute to the factoring of communal areas.
Factors can be found in solicitors' firms, or employed by chartered surveyors, property companies or building firms. Property factoring has a wide range of responsibilities and roles. Typically, a person would encounter a factor when renting property or subcontracting for a building firm.