{"id":48766,"date":"2026-04-14T18:21:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/nar-and-florida-mls-groups-dismissed-from-zea-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T18:21:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:21:28","slug":"nar-and-florida-mls-groups-dismissed-from-zea-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/nar-and-florida-mls-groups-dismissed-from-zea-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"NAR and Florida MLS groups dismissed from Zea lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Association of Realtors<\/strong> (NAR) has notched another favorable legal outcome. <\/p>\n

On Monday, Florida-based U.S. District Court Judge William Dimitrouleas dismissed NAR, as well as 11 Florida associations\/MLSs <\/strong>from the lawsuit on the recommendation<\/a> of Magistrate Judge William Matthewman. <\/p>\n

In early March, Judge Dimitrouleas adopted another report <\/a>by the magistrate judge dismissin<\/a>g Connecticut Association of Realtors<\/strong> (CT Realtors) and Connecticut-based Smart MLS<\/strong>, as well as Arizona-based West and Southeast Realtors of the Valley<\/strong> (WeSERV) from the lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The parties have been dismissed from the suit without prejudice meaning that the plaintiff Jorge Zea could refile his lawsuit. This ruling comes after Zea failed to file any objections to Magistrate Judge Matthewman\u2019s report, which was filed in late March.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The associations dismissed from the lawsuit are: Beaches MLS<\/strong>; Broward, Palm Beaches & St. Lucie Realtors<\/strong>; Miami Realtors<\/strong>; Orlando Regional Realtor Association<\/strong>; Florida Gulf Coast MLS<\/strong>; Stellar MLS<\/strong>; Space Coast MLS<\/strong> and Space Coast Association of Realtors; RealMLS<\/strong>; Northeast Florida Association of Realtors<\/strong> and Central Panhandle Association of Realtors<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Lawsuit claims a coordinate scheme<\/h2>\n

Filed in August<\/a>, the lawsuit claims that the defendants engaged in a \u201ccoordinated scheme\u201d to restrict consumer choice and maintain elevated prices, harming his brokerage<\/a> model.<\/p>\n

Zea runs www.snapflatfee.com<\/strong>, a brokerage that charges sellers a listing fee in exchange for limited services. Zea\u2019s firm syndicates listings data to the MLS<\/a> data feeds and forwards all buyer leads \u201cregardless of their origin\u201d directly to the seller.<\/p>\n

According to Zea, buyer\u2019s agents associated with the defendants steer clients<\/a> away from properties that offer a reduced or nonexistent buyer\u2019s agent commission<\/a>. In his complaint, he argues that this steering is the result of the NAR and the other defendants not enforcing their own rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rules in question relate to the mandatory display of a listing broker\u2019s contact information on the listing page in an IDX display; the commission lawsuit mandate for buyer agency agreements<\/a>; and the prohibition of MLS platforms from allowing users to search or filter results by the name of the listing broker or agent, or by the amount of compensation offered.<\/p>\n

By allegedly refusing to enforce these rules, Zea claims that the defendants<\/a> have competitively disadvantaged his discount-brokerage business.<\/p>\n

In his report, Magistrate Judge Matthewman called the complaint \u201cdeficiently pled\u201d and recommended it be dismissed. Additionally, the judge highlighted several instances of the cases cited by Zea in his filings not existing and being the result of AI hallucinated law. Due to this, the magistrate judge recommended that the court admonish Zea for this. In his ruling Judge Dimitrouleas adopted this recommendation and admonished the plaintiff\u00a0 \u201cover his improper use of artificial intelligence and concomitant misrepresentations to the Court.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Zea continues this behavior, the judge wrote that \u201csevere sanctions may be imposed\u201d against him.<\/p>\n

In an emailed statement, an NAR spokesperson wrote that the trade organization is pleased with the court\u2019s decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we have previously stated, the National Association of Realtors fosters a fair, transparent, and competitive real estate marketplace,\u201d the spokesperson wrote. \u201cSteering is a prohibited practice under NAR policy and the Realtor Code of Ethics. The Code of Ethics is enforced by state and local Realtor associations, and the enforcement of MLS rules are handled by each MLS.\u201d<\/p>\n

This ruling comes just days after NAR announced that it has settled the homebuyer commission lawsuit claims <\/a>by opting into the Tuccori lawsuit settlement.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has notched another favorable legal outcome. On Monday, Florida-based U.S. District Court Judge William Dimitrouleas dismissed NAR, as well as 11 Florida associations\/MLSs from the lawsuit on the recommendation of Magistrate Judge William Matthewman. In early March, Judge Dimitrouleas adopted another report by the magistrate judge dismissing Connecticut Association…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48766"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mk.gen.tr\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}