NAR Settlement Agreement

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) settlement aims to resolve litigation for claims made by home sellers about commission structures. It covers NAR, its over one million members, REALTOR® associations at all levels, association-owned MLSs, and brokerages led by an NAR member with a residential transaction volume up to $2 billion in 2022.

Below are some highlights on how the settlement agreement has affected the MLS platform, policies, and procedures. These MLS changes apply to all CCMLS (Coastal Carolina Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service) subscribers and participants as of August 12th, 2024.

Written Buyer Agreements
ALL MLS participants and subscribers must have a written agreement before touring a listing with a buyer. The written agreement must describe the broker's compensation amount, which must be objectively ascertainable and not open-ended, and the broker may not receive compensation from any source that exceeds the amount in the agreement without renegotiating the agreement.

No Offers of Compensation in the MLS
The MLS is prohibited from including a listing broker's offer of buyer's agent compensation in the database. The compensation fields were removed on August 12th, 2024. No other field may be used to relay offers of compensation. While this change directly affects offers of compensation in the MLS, should a seller instruct their listing brokerage to offer compensation to a buyers agent, this can occur outside of the MLS. There will be policy enforcement procedures should the MLS discover offers of compensation in the MLS in any way as this is forbidden by the settlement. Please do not attempt to manipulate listings to insinuate what an offer of compensation may be. 

Offers of Compensation on Other MLS-Connected Platforms
While offers of compensation are allowed to be made outside of the MLS, a webpage with an IDX feed can only display compensation for the listings of the firm associated with that webpage. In addition, any MLS data license/feed recipients attempting to establish a platform (webpage) to collect offers of compensation between multiple brokers is strictly prohibited. If these actions do occur, CCMLS will terminate the associated data feed. 

Participant Disclosure Regarding Offers
ALL MLS participants and subscribers must disclose to sellers and obtain seller approval for any payment or offer the listing broker or seller makes to another broker, agent, or representative (i.e., attorney) representing a buyer (if any). 

Participant Disclosure Regarding Commissions
ALL MLS participants and subscribers must disclose to sellers and buyers that commissions are not set by law and are fully negotiable in listing agreements (unless it's a government specified form). 

No Filtering
The MLS may not facilitate filtering out listings based on the existence or level of compensation offered to the broker assisting the buyer. 

No Advertising Services as FREE
ALL MLS participants and subscribers are prohibited from representing services for which they are later paid, as free. 

For more information, please visit NAR Summary on MLS Policy Changes

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