A protracted legal battle over whether real estate professionals can create and share floor plans when marketing homes finally ended Monday after the Supreme Court declined to revisit an appellate court’s decision allowing the practice.
The high court’s refusal to hear the case reconfirms the January ruling from the Eighth U.S. District Court of Appeals that found floor plan usage in property listings falls under copyright fair use protections. With this binding precedent now in place, brokerages and agents have the green light to incorporate floor plans in their future marketing plans.
“This decision is great news for anyone looking to buy or sell their home,” Wendell Bullard, chair of the National Association of Realtors®’ (NAR) Legal Action Committee, said in a statement. “Floor plans are vital pieces of information for consumers, which is why the Legal Action Committee and Amicus Brief Advisory Board recommended supporting the brokerages from the very beginning.”
Bullard added that the outcome provides crucial liability protection for real estate professionals nationwide.
The case dates back to 2018, when Missouri-based architect Charles Lawrence James, owner of Designworks Homes, filed suit against Columbia House of Brokers Realty and agents Jackie Bulgin and Susan Horak. James had created a home design used to build several properties between 1996 and 2001. Nearly two decades later, in 2018, he registered that design with the U.S. Copyright Office.
When Bulgin and Horak each listed separate homes built from James’ architectural plans, they created floor plans for their marketing materials—either personally or through contractors. James argued these floor plans infringed on his copyright, setting off seven years of litigation.
Initially, Eighth Circuit Judge Morris Arnold ruled in James’ favor, agreeing that the plans were covered under U.S. copyright laws. However, housing industry advocates were quick to join the fray.
NAR, recognizing the case’s dire consequences for the industry on how properties are marketed, threw its support behind the defendants in 2022. NAR’s Legal Action Committee and Amicus Brief Advisory Board provided funding and filed several friend-of-the-court briefs as the case wound through appeals.
“The Eighth Circuit’s decision not only puts countless consumers at risk of costly, burdensome litigation for making a floor plan of their own home, but it also strains a key sector of America’s economy and threatens a critical tool of transparency for potential homebuyers,” former NAR general counsel, Katie Johnson, said in a statement at the time.
NAR’s support in court filings was crucial in establishing the informational (and critical) nature of floor plans to a home purchase.
For buyers, floor plans help them determine whether a property meets their needs before scheduling showings. Appraisers require access to the plans to determine home values, which directly impacts buyers’ ability to secure financing. Local governments often mandate floor plan submissions before approving renovation permits. And sellers use them to attract serious offers and negotiate fair prices.
The appeals court agreed, finding that using architectural designs as informational tools in real estate transactions met the standards for fair use under copyright law. The ruling emphasized that creating a floor plan for a listing is entirely different from copying the original architectural design, with the former conveying property information rather than providing construction blueprints.
