A settlement worth $120.3 million is now open to almost anyone who bought a home listed on a multiple listing service anywhere in the United States within roughly the past decade, as long as a commission went to a brokerage as part of that purchase. The fund resolves an antitrust lawsuit accusing the National Association of Realtors and more than twenty brokerage companies of conspiring to keep buyer-broker commissions artificially high. Unlike settlements that mail checks automatically, this one requires an active claim, and the deadline to file, October 27, arrives weeks before the case even reaches final court approval.
A $120 Million Fund Built From Two Sets of Defendants
The settlement resolves Tuccori et al. v. At World Properties, LLC et al., a case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The homebuyers who brought the case alleged that the National Association of Realtors and a long list of brokerages enforced rules requiring home sellers to compensate the buyer’s agent, which kept buyer-broker commissions artificially uniform and passed an inflated cost on to buyers through the price of the home. None of the defendants admitted wrongdoing, and no court has ruled on the underlying claims; both sides chose to settle rather than continue the litigation.
The $120,334,500 fund is actually the combination of two separate agreements resolved together. One group of independent and regional brokerages, including Baird & Warner, Real Estate One, Shorewest Realtors and HomeSmart International, settled buyer claims tied to homes listed between December 2017 and June 25, 2026, depending on the state where the property sat. A second, larger group of defendants that includes the National Association of Realtors itself, along with national franchise networks such as Anywhere Real Estate, Compass, eXp World Holdings, HomeServices of America and Douglas Elliman, settled a parallel set of buyer claims covering an even longer stretch of years in some states.
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Eligibility Reaches Back to 2006 in Some States
How far back a purchase counts depends on where the home was listed and which group of defendants sold it. Under the settlement with the National Association of Realtors and the national franchise networks, Puerto Rico purchases qualify starting January 25, 2006; Rhode Island and Louisiana purchases qualify from 2011; and most of the rest of the country falls somewhere between 2015 and 2019. Under the settlement with the independent and regional brokerages, the earliest qualifying date is December 8, 2017, in a handful of states, with most of the country starting a year or two later. Every version of the class period runs through June 25, 2026, so a purchase made as recently as this summer can still qualify.
Qualifying itself is simpler than the dates suggest. A buyer is eligible by having purchased a home listed on a multiple listing service anywhere in the country and having a commission paid to any brokerage, not necessarily one of the named defendants, as part of that transaction. The claim form asks for a recorded property deed, and the settlement administrator has said payments will be calculated from the purchase price and commission figures tied to that deed rather than requiring buyers to track down old closing statements.
Payment amounts are not fixed. Buyers who paid the highest commissions on their purchase are positioned to receive the largest checks, and the exact formula depends on how many valid claims are filed and how much of the fund the court ultimately allows for attorneys’ fees and administrative costs before the remainder is divided among the class. Filing a claim by the deadline is the only way to be considered for a payment; doing nothing forfeits the money while still binding a buyer to the settlement’s terms unless that buyer specifically opted out by September 17.
The Deadlines Still Ahead of a November Court Date
Three dates now control what happens to the fund. Buyers who wanted to preserve the right to sue separately, rather than accept the settlement’s terms, had until September 17, 2026, to formally opt out or object. The claim-filing deadline for everyone who wants a payment is October 27, 2026, submitted online or postmarked by that date. A federal judge is scheduled to hold a final approval hearing on November 2, 2026, roughly a week after claims stop being accepted, meaning the fund’s actual size and each buyer’s exact payment will not be locked in until after the deadline to apply has already passed.
This buyer-side settlement is separate from the more widely covered case brought by home sellers, which produced the National Association of Realtors’ $418 million nationwide settlement in March 2024 after a Missouri jury found the trade group and several brokerages liable for inflating commissions. That earlier settlement compensated sellers who paid buyer-broker commissions out of their sale proceeds; the $120.3 million fund closing this October instead compensates the buyers on the other side of those same transactions, a distinction that has left plenty of eligible buyers unaware they have a claim to file at all.
The only entity authorized to process claims in this case is the court-appointed settlement administrator, Epiq, operating under the name Homebuyer Antitrust Litigation Settlement Administrator. Filing a claim does not require paying a fee, and the official claim form does not ask for a Social Security number. Anyone contacted by phone or email demanding payment to “process” a claim, or asking for financial account information beyond what the settlement website requests, is not dealing with the real settlement administrator regardless of what the caller claims.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by The Money Overview editorial team before publication.
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