At the Realtor Legislative Conference held earlier this week, MLS executives were told that they are responsible for ensuring that real estate agents and brokers comply with the new fee rules.
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Multiple listing services will be responsible for enforcing rule changes that are part of the National Association of Realtors’ proposed antitrust settlement, lawyers for the 1.5 million-member trade group said at an interim meeting this week. notified a group of several hundred MLS executives. .
NAR Associate Attorney Dean Limarowitz spoke Sunday at the MLS Association Executive Session at the Realtors Legislative Conference in Washington, DC.
Dian Rymarowitz
Although he scrutinized some of the policy changes included in the proposed settlement, NAR said the MLS will continue to do so on August 17, even before a court hearing in November when a judge will decide whether to give final approval to the deal. He said the changes needed to be implemented by the end of the day.
On Friday, NAR notified members of the major changes required under the settlement, saying the changes were reviewed by MLS’s Emerging Issues and Technical Advisory Committee and adopted by the NAR Leadership Team.
Limarovic detailed the transaction requirements of a written agreement with the buyer and told attendees what they were waiting for.
“Now, the big question from everyone here: Who is forcing all of this?” she said, drawing laughter from some attendees.
“It’s You. Your MLS is responsible for enforcing the written agreement rules, just as your MLS is enforcing the rules it already has in place. This is just like any other rule it has in place. , it will be a complaints-driven process.
“The important thing here is that the MLS is not required to receive a copy of the written agreement, but can request it as a matter of local enforcement. It’s up to MLS whether they want to do it or not.”
NAR Associate Counselor Dean Rymarowitz’s slides from the MLS Association Executive Session at the Realtor Legislative Conference in Washington, DC on May 5, 2024.
“Good luck, Godspeed,” Reimarowitz said at the end of his presentation, drawing more laughter.
After the session, Meri Jo Cowen, CEO of Florida’s Stellar MLS, which has 84,000 subscribers, told Inman she needed more information.
Meri Jo Cowen
“[It’s]”It is still unclear what our role as the MLS will be in terms of enforcing buyer-broker agreement requirements prior to the show,” Cowen said. “We need further guidance from NAR.”
Mr. Cowen entered the session with the understanding that the MLS would be responsible for changes to data fields related to the settlement, including the prohibition on entering buyer-broker fees into the MLS.
Noting that dealing with the changes was “stressful,” she said that while they are trying to figure out a way to add a new seller concessions field, it would be very easy to remove the compensation field.
She said, “Personally, I don’t want to join a new field because if that happens, there will be liability.” [is] It is misunderstood to be a replacement for compensation fields. ”But her subscribers want it.
Currently, Stellar MLS has a concession field for closing with selection listings that you don’t plan on changing, but there is no field for entering listings into the MLS. She would like to know if buyer broker compensation can be added to the selection list there.
“We don’t want to leave any room for creativity,” Cowen says. She said she wants to get as close to a settlement as possible, leaving no room for blame for anyone.
Cowen said many of her subscribers were confused about the settlement. But sellers can still pay buyer agents just by not going through the MLS, she noted.
“Nothing has really changed,” she said. “Rather than looking for workarounds, answer the phone.”
The third-party firm reached out to Cowen to suggest ways to aggregate compensation outside of MLS, but her answer was a resounding “no!” And she said, “Please don’t use my data,” she told Inman.
Cowen said he knew from the time he attended a joint workshop on real estate competition hosted by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission in 2018 that “this situation would come up again.”
The big question hanging over the industry is whether the Justice Department intends to oppose the NAR settlement in the same way it opposes the MLS PIN settlement in another Antitrust Commission case known as Nosarek. It is.
In any case, Cowen believes the NAR will implement the settlement changes no matter what. Failure to do so leaves the association open to litigation.
Email Andrea V. Brambilla.
