The Baton Home Buyers Committee lawsuit is not the only latest complaint. On Thursday, James Lutz, the lead plaintiff in the Florida Lutz Home Buyers Committee lawsuit, filed a second amended complaint.
The updated complaint adds 31 new plaintiffs to the lawsuit, including many familiar names such as Scott Davis, James Mullis, and Maia Batton. In addition to the homes Lutz purchased in Florida, this new group of plaintiffs includes North Carolina, Maine, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Kansas, New Hampshire, Iowa, California, Illinois, Utah, West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, Minnesota, Nevada, Mexico, Arizona, Virginia, South Carolina, Washington DC, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and New York.
Although the list of plaintiffs in the lawsuit has been updated, the lawsuit’s claims and defendants are Home American Services and Douglas Ellimanit stayed that way. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim they were forced to pay inflated prices for the homes. National Association of Realtors (NAR) Participation Rules. This requires listing brokers to make a lump-sum offer of compensation to the buyer’s broker in order to list a property on the MLS. According to the lawsuit, this rule artificially inflated broker fees and caused home prices to soar.
That rule is now extinct because the settlement of NAR’s home seller’s fee lawsuit prohibited compensation offers from MLS.
The lawsuit was originally filed in July 2024, naming HomeServices of America as the sole defendant. Lutz is represented by Randall P. Ewing Jr. Collaine Tillery LLC He is one of the lead attorneys in the Baton Home Buyers Committee litigation. Home Services of America was withdrawn from the original Baton lawsuit earlier this year.