According to HousingWire, a federal appeals court has upheld settlements that were approved in the Gibson copycat commission case, which involved multiple real estate brokerages. This ruling came just two weeks after the same court had already approved the major National Association of Realtors settlement in a separate case called Sitzer/Burnett. The three-judge panel found that the challenges being raised against these brokerage settlements were essentially the same arguments that had already been rejected in the earlier NAR case.
The upheld settlements include agreements reached by nine different brokerages: Compass, Redfin, The Real Brokerage, Realty ONE Group, At World Properties, Douglas Elliman, Engel & Völkers, HomeSmart, and United Real Estate. All of these companies agreed to implement the same business practice changes that were part of the broader NAR settlement, according to HousingWire's reporting.
The people challenging these settlements, which included James Mullis, Monty March, Robert Friedman, and Benny Cheatham, made arguments similar to objections they had raised in the earlier case. They contended that the settlements shouldn't allow claims from homebuyers to be released alongside those from home sellers, and they questioned whether the settlement amounts were fair.
The appeals court rejected these objections, finding that buyer and seller claims could properly be released together since they stemmed from the same alleged wrongful conduct. The court also addressed the objectors' concerns about the fairness hearing process itself. Even though the district court required objectors to appear in person, the appeals panel found this did not violate due process rights because objectors received proper notice, had the chance to voice their objections, and the judge reviewed those objections carefully.
What I am seeing locally here in the Bay Area is that these court decisions continue to remove major legal obstacles to the commission reform that's already in motion. For our buyers and sellers in Fremont and throughout the East Bay, this means the path forward for changes to how we do business in real estate is becoming clearer and more certain, even as litigation continues elsewhere in the system.
