NAR faces new Whittman antitrust suit over membership structure

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) may have been dismissed from two lawsuits related to its three-way membership agreement, but that didn’t stop William Whittman from filing his own suit on Friday.

Whittman, who is a licensed broker in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, is suing NAR, Virginia Realtors, Northern Virginia Association of Realtors, Maryland Realtors and the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors, claiming that the three-way membership agreement structure has caused him to suffer millions of dollars in damages. The plaintiff claims that the membership structure constitutes a “nationwide cartel structure that extracts fees at every level,” and that it creates “unlawful restraints of trade, exclusionary practices and fee structures.”

In the complaint, Whittman refers to the Realtor association defendants as “predatory,” and an “infestation,” as well as “cancerous growths feeding on Realtors.”

“Defendants are nothing more than private corporations that have entrenched themselves as gatekeepers, constructing a tri-layered paywall of local, state and national dues forcibly extracted to unlock MLS, lockboxes and standard forms,” the complaint states.

Whittman, who is representing himself pro se, filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Maryland. 

According to the filing, the only reason brokers join the associations is to gain access to the MLS, lockboxes and standardized forms. 

In the complaint Whittman argues that the Realtor association membership dues structure hampered his firm’s ability to expand. According to Whittman, agents left his firm Proplocate Realty as they needed to pay separate membership dues in each of the jurisdictions his firm served. Additionally, he claims that without these allegedly anticompetitive restraints, his firm would have expanded nationwide by now. 

Whittman is asking for damages and injunctive relief preventing the Realtor associations from enforcing three-way membership. 

In an emailed statement, a NAR spokesperson wrote that NAR membership is optional.

“Similar to other national membership organizations, NAR’s integrated structure at the national, state and local level is fundamental to the value we deliver to members. It provides members with a unified voice on policy issues at all levels of government, a uniform Code of Ethics, and valuable tools and professional development opportunities that help members serve homebuyers and sellers alike,” the spokesperson wrote. “Over the summer two separate courts ruled against similar challenges and we will similarly respond to these allegations in Court.”