Threat to NAR Settlement

Anthony Lamacchia:

Appeal hearing threatens NAR settlement, raising industry uncertainty. When Housing Wire put this article out on Monday, I heard from many people around the country saying, is this real? Is this possible? And some of our agents here, even at Lamarck here, were texting me saying, can you address this? What does this mean? Is this possible? So let me start with the first question. Is it possible that one of these appeals on the real estate settlement that went in place on August 17, 2024, and was agreed to on March 15, 2024, is it possible that it could be undone? Yeah, it’s possible.

Is it likely? That’s up for debate. I’ve spoken to many different players involved, one of which is the one who filed one of the appeals, the law professor in Buffalo, New York, Tanya Monastery, very smart professor, very, very educated, very substantive arguments she’s put out. She had one of the appeals.

There’s another appeal sort of from the plaintiffs in the Batten case, which I thought was interesting, and I’m going to touch on that a little. I don’t know that as well as I know Professor Monastery’s appeal, but I just want to talk about it for a minute. This comes straight from our general counsel.

In the Batten case and other home buyer cases from other jurisdictions, this appeal or the appeal is from buyers who argue that the NAR settlement prevents their claims. Specifically, since sellers are releasing the defendants for the home sale, there is a question about whether they also release their rights to bring a claim as a buyer. All right, a little bit confusing, a little bit in the legal weeds, but isn’t it funny that it’s another group basically saying, hey, we want to be sure we can sue the real estate industry.

Remember, I was doing videos two years ago saying these people aren’t going away until they get punched in the mouth. Well, that’s a really good example. The other appeal that I find to be more interesting is from this professor, and she argues on things like standing, practice changes that were forced upon us, attorney’s fees.

Hello, I’ve been talking about attorney’s fees for over two years because they’re out of control. They’re judicially sanctioned extortion. They’re a damn ripoff, and the only people that are making out on this is the attorneys.

She also talks about really how there’s no enforcement mechanism, and she gets into fairness, and she points out how Ketchmark basically was ghostwriting on behalf of the judge, and she picked up on something specific where he did that. Well, I remember like yesterday doing videos for you all and talking about how there was undoubtedly a connection. I said it in the debate, which was almost two years ago, two weeks from now.

I specifically said there was a connection between attorney Ketchmark, some of his family members in the court, his sister’s a judge, the other attorneys, Matt Demeron. I remember there’s a picture that exists. Let’s show that picture.

Look at them all here at their baseball game. I showed this in another video, I believe a while back when I went over the attorney’s fees, and look at that picture. Don’t they look, let’s leave it up there.

Don’t they look like they’re having such a fun time together back in 2018 when they were probably plotting to take down the industry and rip off a billion dollars, of which they now are getting roughly $333 million. Don’t they look cozy together there? Isn’t that sweet? Isn’t that a nice picture? I was saying this two years ago that Howard Hanna, when they filed their appeal, they pointed these things out, and now Tanya is pointing them out in a very professional, professor-like way of doing it. I want to read some of this.

So let me peek at the Housing Wire article first. I want to point out a couple of specific things that I thought was interesting. Professor Monastir estimates that the average damages per seller to be a little over $11,000 per seller.

Well, because $11,000 per seller, they’re not going to be able to give nearly as many people relief. They’re talking about 40 million class members are to receive an expected share of $16 a piece. $16.

Remember when Attorney Ketchmark, very talented attorney from Western Missouri, was on the debate saying, I’m after the corporations. I’m here for the people. We’re helping.

We’re protecting people that have been taken advantage of. Well, isn’t that nice that he and the other attorneys are getting them $16? Oh, what an amazing thing they did for society. And she’s making the argument that that’s not the proper relief.

Well, I don’t think any relief is the proper relief because no one was ripped off at all. No one’s been taken advantage of. The whole thing’s a scam.

I’ve said that from the beginning. But let me keep reading. According to Charles Kane, an attorney and president of Alliance Solutions, the ruling by the appeals court will determine exactly what kind of work the parties will have in front of them.

He goes on to say it could be something as simple as the court rejects the settlement and send it back to the district court. Well, if they do that, it’s going to be right back with Judge Boe. And whatever Attorney Ketchmark wants is what’s going to happen.

He says on the off chance that they couldn’t negotiate a new settlement. So there is debate among people in the know, people much more knowledgeable than me of, well, what the hell would happen if this settlement came undone? Would a new settlement be negotiated? I suspect that’s the case. Would they have to go back and relitigate? He says that’s unlikely.

I think it’s unlikely. I think it’s possible the attorneys would start suing again quite quickly. And my company would probably be on the list, especially now that we’re far over two billion dollars annually.

And if that’s the case, that’s the case. But be ready for war. Plaintiffs, attorneys, be ready for a war like you’ve never seen, because I won’t be like these other defendants who go, oh, my God, let’s settle, let’s settle.

No, no, no. I’ve promised that from the beginning. Now, let’s jump back in and look at or jump in and look at a couple of things that Professor Monastery pointed out.

Page 33. First, the scale of ghostwriting in this case bellies any argument that the court exercised independent judgment. The court took all 79 pages of plaintiff’s proposed order and adopted them substantially verbatim.

Isn’t that funny? So she somehow figured this out. I didn’t read every sentence. I have spoken to her.

She’s pointed out how she figured it out. But it sure falls in line with what I pointed out all along, which is they’re all in cahoots. And I thought I’d just start the new year, 2026, by pointing that out again.

Now, attorney’s fees. In awarding attorney, let’s see here, fees of $333 million when the class recovered a tenth of a penny on the dollar. They referenced a T-Mobile case, including the right not to have their recovery reduced by excessive attorney’s fee.

The Supreme Court has twice stated that the degree of success obtained is the most critical factor in determining the reasonableness of the attorney’s fees. I can remember talking to one of the defendants, a large defendant, I won’t say who, but the gentleman said to me, you wouldn’t have believed it. They said we’re all guilty without really thinking it through.

A couple of the jurors were sleeping. Then they asked him about the attorney’s fees. Oh, yeah, they’re approved.

It was like nothing, right? After deducting fees and expenses, 40 million class members will share about $650 million. And that comes out to roughly $16 a piece. So folks, it’s ridiculous.

A couple of other things that I want to point out. Wisconsin recently passed legislation making public listing the default. Washington state is also considering that kind of a boost to Zillow.

So it’s no surprise that it’s there. So that’s with the argument of clear cooperation. Should properties have to be listed publicly? I’m definitely on the side of listings publicly.

Give every buyer and seller a fair shake. And that’s the only way to ensure that there’s no shenanigans, hence why it was voted upon in November of 2018 to do it that way. But who knows? It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

I also find it interesting that the Department of Justice a few weeks back sent a statement of interest to Howard Hanna, asking them about various practices on different things. I’ve said all along, and I’ll say it again, Hanna runs a solid company. They’re solid people from what I can tell and from knowing them.

I’m a little surprised that the Department of Justice interest, they put out a statement. It wasn’t really against the real estate industry to the extent that it was that they were a couple of years ago. They put out a statement where they sort of slapped both sides.

We shall see. Stay tuned for all the videos that I’ve ever done on these absurd cases. Visit recases.com. That’s recases.com for quick updates along the way.

You can always follow me on Instagram. That’s all. I’ve probably bored you to death by now.

And I wish everyone a happy, healthy 2026, including the plaintiff’s attorneys and the fake plaintiffs who came after our industry and ripped us off. I wish you all a happy new year, and I hope you do more productive, good things with your time. Thank you.

Learn more about Anthony Lamacchia