What the NAR Lawsuit Settlement Said in March 2024

NAR announced the agreement on March 15, 2024. It agreed to pay $418 million over roughly four years, subject to court approval, and to adopt new rules for its members and the MLSs its associations own.[1] The release covered NAR itself, its more than one million members, the state and local Realtor associations, association-owned MLSs and brokerages with an NAR member as principal that had 2022 residential volume of $2 billion or less.[1]

Two practice changes sat at the heart of it.[1]

Our original post described the first change as NAR dropping a rule that required listing brokers to offer a buyer’s agent commission on the MLS. That understated it. The settlement went further and prohibited those offers on the MLS altogether, while leaving sellers free to offer compensation through negotiation outside it.[1][2]

What the settlement did not do matters just as much. It set no commission rate and no cap. NAR’s own consumer guidance says broker commissions are “not set by law and are fully negotiable.”[3]

How the NAR Settlement Came About

The settlement did not come out of nowhere. The seller case known as Sitzer/Burnett went to trial in October 2023, and the jury sided with the home sellers, awarding nearly $1.8 billion in damages.[7] A number that size, plus a wave of copycat suits, is the context for NAR’s statement that the agreement was “the best outcome we could achieve in the circumstances.”[1]

NAR was not the only defendant to settle. Anywhere Real Estate, RE/MAX, HomeServices of America and Keller Williams also reached agreements, and together the settlements in that case came to more than $876 million.[7] Dozens of other brokerages later joined separate settlements, and the official settlement website now describes the total as over $1 billion.[8]

What the Settlement Means for Home Sellers

You still decide whether to offer anything toward the buyer’s agent. What changed is the channel. Since August 17, 2024 that offer cannot ride along on the MLS; it gets communicated off the MLS or negotiated inside the purchase offer. Sellers can also offer buyer concessions on the MLS, such as help with the buyer’s closing costs.[2]

In practice, a lot of the negotiation that used to happen silently in a number field now happens in the offer itself. A buyer’s agent writes in a request for the seller to cover some or all of their fee, and you answer it the same way you answer the price and the credits.

My opinion, after watching this play out across Orange County since 2024: a seller who flatly refuses to discuss buyer agent pay is usually shrinking their own buyer pool. Many buyers, especially first-time buyers stretching to close on a condo in Costa Mesa or Tustin, do not have the cash to pay their agent on top of a down payment. Refusing is your right. Just price that choice in before you make it, and look at the full picture on a net sheet of what it costs to sell a house in Orange County.

Your listing agent has to explain the fee

The original version of this post told sellers to be ready to understand the value their listing agent provides. That advice aged well. Commissions are negotiable on both sides of the deal, so the listing conversation is now the place to ask exactly what work you are getting for the fee, from pricing through the final negotiation.[3] If you are interviewing agents, our first offer test for choosing a realtor is a good way to separate a confident agent from a cheap one.

What the Settlement Means for Home Buyers

The biggest change for buyers is the paperwork at the start. Before an agent tours a home with you, you will be asked to sign a written agreement.[3] Asking an agent about their services at an open house does not require one.[2]

Under NAR’s rules, that agreement has to do four things:[3]

• State the compensation amount or rate, or how it will be determined, in a way that is objectively ascertainable and not open-ended.
• Say the agent may not receive more than the agreed amount from any source.
• Disclose conspicuously that commissions are not set by law and are fully negotiable.
• Include any other terms the law requires.

That second point is the one buyers tend to skip past. It means “whatever the seller offers” no longer works as a fee arrangement. NAR’s guidance uses that exact phrasing as an example of open-ended compensation that is not allowed.[3]

Our 2024 post suggested buyers could negotiate lower fees or go without an agent entirely. Both remain legal choices. I would push back on the last one for most people buying in Orange County, though, because the expensive mistakes in a purchase here (an inspection response, or an HOA document nobody read before closing) are rarely visible at the showing. If you are buying for the first time, start with our first-time home buyer basics.

California's Buyer Agreement Law Since 2025

California did not stop at the NAR settlement rules. Assembly Bill 2992, chaptered in 2024, added Civil Code section 1670.50, effective January 1, 2025.[6] That makes the written buyer agreement a matter of state law here, independent of whether an agent belongs to NAR.

The California Department of Real Estate has also proposed regulations to fill in the details. Its proposal would define three months as 90 calendar days and create a presumption that the first practicable time to sign is before an agent shows a property, whether in person or virtually.[6] Treat those as proposals, as described in the DRE document, unless your agent can show you the adopted version.

I like the three month cap. A buyer who is unhappy with their agent is never locked in for long, and an agent has to keep earning the renewal.

What Has Changed Since the NAR Settlement

Here is where things stand as of October 2026, based on sources checked for this update.

1. August 17, 2024. The MLS compensation ban and the written buyer agreement requirement took effect nationwide. Our March 2024 post did not give a date; NAR’s announcement at the time had pointed to mid-July.[1][2]
2. November 2024 to January 2025. After a fairness hearing in November 2024, the district court approved the settlements and entered final judgment in January 2025.[7]
3. January 1, 2025. California’s Civil Code section 1670.50 took effect.[6]
4. August 19, 2026. A three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the settlements and rejected every argument raised by the seven appellants, including objections that the payments were too small and that homebuyers should not be covered.[7]

NAR has also posted news of a separate settlement in a case called Tuccori v. At World Properties, intended to resolve nationwide homebuyer claims.[4] The terms were not on the page we reviewed, so we are not describing them here.

What I have not seen is a single number replacing the old one. Fees in our market are negotiated deal by deal, and that is exactly what the settlement documents say should happen.[3]

How We Handle Buyer Agent Compensation Today

On the listing side, compensation gets its own conversation before we go live. We talk through whether offering something toward the buyer’s agent widens your buyer pool enough to be worth it, or whether a concession toward closing costs does the job better. Then it goes into the plan with your price. For sellers weighing the whole strategy, our guide to selling your house for the most money covers the rest.

With buyers, the written agreement is the first thing we sit down with, line by line, before a single showing.

It used to feel awkward to talk about pay on day one. Now it is required, and frankly most sellers and buyers I sit down with, from Laguna Beach to Corona del Mar, seem relieved to know the number up front. If you are buying and selling at the same time, you will be on both sides of this conversation at once, so plan each side’s compensation before the first contract is signed.