Another copycat commission lawsuit has hit the residential real estate industry, this time coming from a homebuyer, as buy-side cases continue to advance in the wake of settlements in sell-side commission litigation.
The latest class-action antitrust lawsuit targets The Real Brokerage and Realty ONE Group, as well as The Agency and San Francisco luxury brokerage Vanguard Properties.
Filed by homebuyer Kevin Cwynar on June 28, the suit alleges that the brokerages “adopted and implemented anticompetitive practices that harmed consumers and homebuyers by, among other things, increasing and artificially sustaining the commissions paid to real estate brokers as part of residential real estate transactions.”
Essentially, the filing alleges that buyers paid inflated home prices in order to cover the buyer and seller agents’ commissions, something they were unaware of and unable to negotiate. The arguments are similar to those made in Burnett v. NAR et al lawsuit, as well as the plethora of copycat suits filed since the case’s 2023 verdict.
This case, however, appears to be the first buyer-side copycat, filed by a different law firm than the main buyer suits—Freed Kanner London & Millen based out of Chicago and Philadelphia.
The original buyer lawsuit, initially known as Leeder but renamed Batton after replacing its lead plaintiff, was filed by lawyers at Korein Tillery, also based in Chicago. A handful of Burnett copycats named both buyers and sellers as plaintiffs, though none of these cases have advanced as far as Batton.
The new lawsuit also names the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), “NAR MLSs, and NAR-affiliated brokerages and Realtor associations” as co-conspirators, as each brokerage named is part of NAR as well as the MLSs the agents use. The claim here also echoes other Burnett copycats in that the filing alleges NAR’s rules pre-August 17, 2024 practice changes, specifically the Mandatory Commission Rule, are the cause of the issue.
NAR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Cwynar’s case, he purchased a home in Algonquin, Illinois, which was listed with Midwest Real Estate Data (an NAR MLS) site,working with a buyer and a seller’s agent who were both NAR members.
The suit was also filed in the Northern District of Illinois, the same court where the buyer-side based Batton case is currently unfolding.
Both The Real Brokerage and Realty ONE Group have previously settled in the Burnett case, which extends to all the copycat homeseller lawsuits the firms were named in as well. A judge previously ruled that sellers who also bought homes could not sue as part of the buyer case, though that decision has been appealed.
As of now, these settlements do not apply to buyer side cases, although the question of immunity has been brought up before in other lawsuits.
The Real Brokerage and Realty ONE Group both declined to comment on the suit.
