They’ve been fighting since 2020, and now NAR plans to take the Department of Justice to the nation’s highest court to enforce a previous settlement.
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Each week on The Download, Inman’s Christy Murdock takes a deeper look at the top-read stories of the week to give you what you’ll need to meet Monday head-on. This week: They’ve been fighting since 2020, and now NAR plans to take the Department of Justice to the nation’s highest court to enforce a previous settlement.
So much of the legal wrangling that’s been talked and written about in recent years has been consumer-focused, with consumer watchdog organizations — not to mention buyers and sellers themselves — at the center of the conversation about what’s wrong with the way Realtors do business.
Looming over these since the National Association of Realtors’ settlement, however, has been the question of what the Department of Justice thinks about the way Realtors do business — and what changes it might seek to mandate.
Back in 2020, the DOJ simultaneously announced a lawsuit against and settlement with NAR, focusing on rules that federal officials views as anticompetitive. Subsequently, the DOJ resumed its probe and, in 2021, withdrew from the settlement.
Now, in a court filing, NAR has stated that it plans to file a petition for a writ of certiorari — a request for case review — to the Supreme Court by Oct. 10. This comes about a month and a half after NAR suffered a setback in the case after an appeals court refused the trade group’s request for a rehearing.
EXTRA: Kevin Sears opens up about NAR and the DOJ
Since NAR’s struggles and agent uncertainty appear to be far from over, it’s essential to watch your p’s and q’s when it comes to the trade group — and the way you do business. There’s no question that the industry and its professional organizations are under scrutiny, so act accordingly.
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