Editor’s note: The COURT REPORT is RISMedia’s weekly look at current and upcoming lawsuits, investigations and other legal developments around real estate.
FTC reaches a settlement with Zillow and Redfin syndication
Nearly a year after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Zillow and Redfin over an “illegal anti-competitive agreement,” the parties reached a settlement just minutes before the trial was to begin last week.
The settlement “unwinds” the $100 million partnership between Zillow and Redfin, in which Zillow allegedly paid Redfin to withdraw from and stay out of the internet listing service (ILS) market for up to nine years.
According to a press release by the FTC, the proposed settlement implements several changes to the Zillow-Redfin syndication. Major changes include overturning restrictions on Redfin’s “ability to compete independently against Zillow” in the rental listing market, commitments to encourage Redfin’s return to the market, facilitate recruiting of Zillow employees and for Zillow customers to be allowed to renegotiate their contracts without cost or penalty.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson calls the settlement a “complete victory” and says it “resolves all our competition concerns” on social media.
With Redfin’s return to the rental market, renters now “have more options and property managers got more leads at lower costs,” a Zillow spokesperson said.
Both Zillow and Redfin emphasized that the settlement does not dissolve the syndication aspect of their partnership, with property owners still able to list rentals across both sites, while the companies share lead revenue.
Renters can expect to see “significantly more listings than it had prior to the 2025 agreement,” according to the FTC press release.
Fair housing programs safe from HUD, for now
After suing the Trump administration earlier in July, the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) and Massachusetts Fair Housing Center celebrated their win on Wednesday as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) plan to redistribute $56 million away from over 100 fair housing-focused nonprofits was denied by a Massachusetts judge.
U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun ruled that the agency had unlawfully restricted funding to fair housing organizations and granted the plaintiffs motion for a temporary restraining order.
In his memorandum of decision, Joun states that HUD’s restructure “effectively bars the very housing organizations that have been effectuating the Fair Housing Incentives Program’s (FHIP) mission year after year since its enactment.” The judge points out that HUD also attempts to insert unrelated conditions into its grant agreements, such as gender ideology beliefs, immigration stance and faith-based language.
“HUD’s explanation does not add up,” Joun stated in his memorandum. “The changes cut more fair housing organizations than they include, limit fair housing organization grants to only five organizations over the next year, and limit funds to organizations with an annual budget of at least $5 million.”
This ruling marks another hitch in the road for the Trump administration, which has made several attempts to upend current interpretations and fair housing enforcement. In June, HUD Secretary Scott Turner made it clear that the administration would focus on tearing down the “regulatory environment” that he claimed stymies the housing market.
At that time, Turner also expressed that Trump is focused on lowering costs, in reference to homebuilding-associated costs and interest rates. Interest rates are about 40 basis points lower than when Trump took office, but also up 60 basis points from the beginning of the year. Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh was ambiguous in his first Jackson Hole speech last Friday as some Fed members call for rate hikes.
JND’s recusal denied in Gibson v. NAR
Nearly a month after the request was submitted, federal judge Stephen R. Bough denied the motion to dismiss Special Master Chris Hellums from the Gibson v. NAR case—the largest commission copycat. The motion for recusal was submitted on Aug. 7 on behalf of JND Legal Administration, the non-party settlement administrator in the case that has billed around $36 million from the over $1 billion settlement fund.
JND argued that “in connection with his responsibilities” in the Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) antitrust litigation lawsuit as the local facilitating counsel—and where JND is the claims administrator—he “expressed a bias” against the group, according to the motion.
Yet, in his motion to deny the recusal, Bough argued that non-parties, “cannot move for the disqualification of a Special Master,” and that because Hellums did not have the authority to make a decision in the Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) case, he did not have a bias against JND. He also said that overall, JND’s allegations “lack factual basis.”
Initially, neither the plaintiffs or defendants filed any objections to the court appointing a Special Master to the case. Hellums is currently a practicing attorney at the Alabama firm Pittman Dutton Hellums Bradley & Mann, P.C. (PDHB&M).
The evidence for the recusal included an email thread between Hellums and Niel Zola—the former executive manager and founder of JND—and distribution documents for the BCBS antitrust settlement that JND is also a third-party administrator for.
The email correspondence dates back to Dec. 2025 and goes until early January. In their conversation, Hellums questioned JND’s proposal and did not recommend that JND be used for digital distribution of settlement packages. His concerns seemed to stem from the ways in which JND could pocket a portion of the payouts based on which banks and card vendors they choose.
D.R. Horton hears a lawsuit
One of the nation’s largest homebuilders, D.R. Horton, is asking a judge to force buyers who sued the company over allegedly misleading estimates on homeownership costs into arbitration.
Filed back in December, a handful of people who purchased D.R. Horton homes are seeking class-action status, claiming the builder systematically obscured monthly costs when marketing homes through a partnership with DHI Mortgage, the building’s “preferred” lender. Some of the families say their monthly payments rose by over 50% after closing on their homes.
As D.R. Horton is simultaneously denying the allegations and seeking to have the lawsuit thrown out, it also argued last week that buyers signed binding arbitration agreements that “are broadly written to encompass any dispute relating to the purchase agreements and the homes.” Those clauses should pause the lawsuit and compel the buyers to arbitrate, it said.
A similar dispute took place in the early days of the commission lawsuits which alleged real estate agents inflated commission fees. Multiple federal judges declined to enforce arbitration clauses in listing contracts, at least partially because the big brokerages were not parties to the contract in that context.
Plaintiffs are asking for unspecified damages and a court order preventing D.R. Horton from the alleged misleading practices. A judge had not yet ruled on the arbitration request at press time.
