Lutz lawsuit over homebuyer commission adds more than 30 new plaintiffs
The Batton Homebuyer Commission lawsuits aren’t the only ones receiving updated complaints. On Thursday, James Lutz, the lead plaintiff on the Lutz Commission for Florida Home Buyers, filed a second amended complaint.
This updated complaint adds 31 new plaintiffs to the lawsuit, including many household names, such as Scott Davis, James Mullis, and Mya Batton. In addition to the house Lutz bought in Florida, this new group of plaintiffs also bought houses in North Carolina, Maine, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Kansas, New Hampshire, Iowa, California, Illinois, Utah, West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Virginia, South Carolina, Washington, DC, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut and New York.
While the list of plaintiffs in the lawsuit got a makeover, the lawsuit’s allegations and defendants… HomeServices of America And Douglas Ellimanremained the same. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim they were forced to pay high prices for their homes because of the National Association of Real Estate Agents (NAR) Participation Rule, which required listing agents to make a blanket offer of compensation to buyer agents for listing a property on the MLS. According to the lawsuit, this rule led to artificially inflated real estate agent commissions, driving up home prices.
This rule has now been lifted because NAR’s Home Seller Litigation Committee prohibits offers of compensation from the MLS.
The lawsuit was originally filed in July 2024, naming only HomeServices of America as a defendant. Lutz is represented by Randall P. Ewing Jr., of Korein Tillery LLC in Chicago, who is one of the lead attorneys in the Batton homebuyer commission lawsuits. HomeServices of America was dismissed from the original Batton lawsuit earlier this year.
