In his lawsuit, which was filed in August, Zea claims that the defendants engaged in a “coordinated scheme” to restrict consumer choice and maintain elevated prices, harming his brokerage model. According to Zea, buyer’s agents associated with the defendants steer clients away from properties that offer a reduced or non-existent buyer’s agent commission. In his complaint he argues that this steering is the result of NAR and the other defendants not enforcing their own rules.
The rules in question relate to the mandatory display of a listing broker’s contact information on the listing page in an IDX display, the commission lawsuit mandate for buyer agency agreements and the prohibition of MLS platforms from allowing users to search or filter search results by the name of the listing broker or agent, or by the amount of compensation offered. By allegedly refusing to enforce these rules, Zea claims that the defendants have competitively disadvantaged his discount-brokerage business. Due to this, he is asking the court to force the defendants to enforce their own rules.
In his report, which was filed earlier this month, Magistrate Judge William Matthewman wrote that the motion “should be denied first on the basis that Plaintiff waited almost a year to file it after he started communicating with Defendants regarding their perceived rule violations.”
In his ruling on Thursday, Judge William Dimitrouleas, who is overseeing the lawsuit, wrote that he agreed with the magistrate judge’s analysis and conclusions.
NAR did not immediately return HousingWire’s request for comment.