Important: There is no standard, fixed, or required commission rate in real estate. All commission rates are fully negotiable — by law and in practice. Any commission figures referenced on this site are for illustrative purposes only and should not be interpreted as typical, customary, or recommended rates.
How PropertyPleadings.com selects, verifies, and updates the information it publishes.
Last reviewed: May 20, 2026
PropertyPleadings.com exists to make the real estate antitrust litigation landscape legible to the people it affects most: homeowners, buyers, sellers, real estate professionals, and the attorneys and journalists who cover the industry. The site tracks active federal and state lawsuits challenging commission-sharing rules, MLS data-access practices, and related anticompetitive conduct in the residential real estate market.
Coverage is limited to cases with a documented nexus to residential real estate competition, consumer harm, or industry-wide structural change. The site does not track every real estate dispute — only those with the potential to reshape how homes are bought, sold, or financed at scale.
The editorial perspective is explicitly consumer-advocate: we believe that transparency in compensation, open access to listing data, and competitive markets produce better outcomes for buyers and sellers than the status quo. That perspective informs how we frame stories, but it does not alter the factual record we report.
A case is added to the tracker when it meets at least one of the following criteria:
Federal antitrust claims under the Sherman Act
Cases alleging price-fixing, market allocation, or anticompetitive tying arrangements in residential real estate commission structures or MLS access rules.
Class actions with significant class size or damages exposure
Putative or certified class actions where the proposed class encompasses a substantial number of home sellers, buyers, or agents, or where claimed damages exceed $100 million.
MLS data-access and platform competition disputes
Cases challenging rules that restrict how listing data flows between MLSs, portals, and brokerages — including injunction proceedings with industry-wide implications.
Government enforcement actions
DOJ, FTC, or state attorney general actions targeting real estate industry practices, including amicus filings and statements of interest in private litigation.
Appeals with precedential potential
Circuit court appeals of district court rulings in tracked cases, where the appellate outcome could alter the legal landscape for other pending matters.
Cases are removed from active tracking — and flagged as historical records — when they are fully resolved (final judgment, settlement fully administered, or voluntary dismissal with prejudice) and no further appellate proceedings are anticipated.
Every factual claim on this site is anchored to at least one primary source. The hierarchy of sources we rely on, in descending order of preference, is:
| Source Type | Examples |
|---|---|
| Court filings (primary) | Complaints, amended complaints, motions, orders, judgments — obtained directly from PACER, court websites, or parties' public dockets |
| Official press releases | DOJ, FTC, NAR, brokerage, or law firm announcements linked to the underlying filing |
| Verified legal journalism | Reuters, Law360, Bloomberg Law, The American Lawyer, and major national outlets with dedicated legal desks |
| Industry trade press | Inman News, RealTrends, HousingWire — used for context and industry reaction, not as sole source for legal facts |
| Secondary aggregators | Used only to locate primary sources, never cited as the factual record itself |
External URLs embedded in blog posts are navigated to and confirmed to load before publication. We do not embed citation links that have not been personally verified in the current session. If a source URL later becomes unavailable, we note the original citation in text and, where possible, link to an archived version.
We are not lawyers. Nothing on this site constitutes legal advice. Analysis of legal strategy, procedural posture, or likely outcomes reflects the editorial judgment of the author and should not be relied upon as a substitute for consultation with a licensed attorney.
The site operates on three update cadences:
Breaking / Same-Day
Significant rulings, emergency motions, settlement announcements, and government enforcement actions are posted as homepage development cards within hours of confirmation from a primary source.
Weekly Roundup
A curated weekly blog post summarizes all material developments across tracked cases, published each Monday. The roundup covers docket activity from the prior week and flags upcoming deadlines.
Tracker Database
Individual lawsuit records in the database are updated whenever a material change occurs — new filing, status change, settlement milestone, or appellate development. The homepage badge reflects the date of the most recent update.
Older lawsuit records that are no longer actively monitored are flagged as "Historical record — no active monitoring" to prevent any implication of recent verification. Readers should treat those entries as a reference baseline, not a current status report.
Hero images, social graphics, vertical story cards, and reel thumbnails published on this site are created using AI image-generation tools. They are editorial illustrations — visual metaphors designed to represent the subject matter of each article — and are not documentary photographs, court exhibits, surveillance images, or representations of actual events, locations, or individuals.
Each AI-generated image is captioned "Illustration: AI-generated editorial graphic" directly beneath the image on the article page. The brand color palette (navy #0A1628, gold #C9A84C) and editorial style are consistent across all generated assets to maintain visual coherence.
Reel videos are generated as raw footage without text, then composited with pixel-perfect ffmpeg text overlays to ensure all on-screen copy is accurate and readable. AI video generation is never used to produce text that appears in the final published asset.
We correct factual errors promptly and transparently. When a correction is made to a published article, a correction notice is appended to the article noting what was changed and when. We do not silently edit published content to remove or alter factual claims without disclosure.
To report a factual error, a broken link, or a case status that appears out of date, use the Report a Correction form or email us directly. We review all correction requests and respond within two business days.
Opinion and analysis pieces are not subject to the corrections policy for matters of interpretation — only for verifiable factual errors such as incorrect case names, wrong dates, or misattributed quotes.
Journalists, attorneys, researchers, and educators are welcome to cite PropertyPleadings.com as a secondary source for case tracking and analysis. When citing this site, please include the article title, author, publication date, and the full URL. Because case statuses change, please also note the date on which you accessed the page.
For legal filings and academic work, we recommend citing the underlying primary sources (court documents, DOJ press releases, etc.) that are linked within each article, rather than citing PropertyPleadings.com as the primary source of record.
Suggested citation format
Thorsen, Frances Flynn. "[Article Title]." PropertyPleadings.com, [Publication Date]. [URL]. Accessed [Access Date].