What Is the Batton Real Estate Lawsuit? Claims and Settlements

The Batton real estate lawsuit is a homebuyer class-action antitrust case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against the National Association of Realtors and several major brokerages, alleging they conspired for decades to inflate the commissions buyers paid their agents. As of mid-2026, two defendants have settled for a combined $28.5 million, and the rest of the case is paused while a separate nationwide homebuyer settlement moves toward approval.¹²

The case was originally filed by homebuyer Judah Leeder in January 2021 and amended in July 2022 with Mya Batton named as lead plaintiff. A second, expanded complaint known as Batton 2 followed in 2023, adding defendants after the landmark verdict in the related Sitzer/Burnett litigation. Eight plaintiffs are now listed, and the consolidated action carries docket number 1:21-cv-00430 before Judge LaShonda A. Hunt.¹³

What the Lawsuit Claims

At the heart of the case is a now-defunct NAR policy called the Participation Rule. It required any listing broker who wanted to post a property on a Realtor-affiliated Multiple Listing Service to make a blanket offer of compensation to the buyer’s broker. The plaintiffs argue this locked in uniform commission rates regardless of the actual work performed and kept those rates artificially high for decades.⁴

The complaint also alleges the structure encouraged “steering,” where buyer’s agents guide clients toward homes offering higher commissions. Expert witnesses for the plaintiffs said U.S. buyer-agent commissions have hovered near 3 percent, compared with roughly 1.38 percent in foreign markets, and attributed the gap to the challenged rules rather than differences in service.⁴

What distinguishes Batton from the earlier Sitzer/Burnett case is who is suing. Sitzer/Burnett was brought by home sellers. Batton is the first major suit to argue that homebuyers themselves were harmed by the commission-sharing structure and have standing as indirect purchasers under state antitrust and consumer protection laws.⁵

Who Is Being Sued

The defendant list expanded significantly between the original 2021 filing and the Batton 2 complaint in 2023. Named defendants have included:

National Association of Realtors
Keller Williams (settled)
RE/MAX (settled)
Anywhere Real Estate
Compass
eXp World Holdings
Redfin
Weichert Realtors
United Real Estate
Howard Hanna (voluntarily dismissed without prejudice in March 2024)
Douglas Elliman

Some firms added in the second complaint have since been dismissed from Batton but remain defendants in nearly identical homebuyer commission suits elsewhere.⁶

Who the Proposed Class Covers

In September 2025, the plaintiffs asked the court to certify a class of homebuyers in 23 states and Washington, D.C., who paid a buyer-broker commission on properties listed with any of 39 Multiple Listing Services between January 25, 2015, and December 31, 2021. Their expert put average damages at roughly $8,524 per class member, projecting $3.6 billion for just four sampled MLSs and potentially tens of billions if scaled nationally.⁴

Certification hit a wall. Defendants argued about 79 percent of the proposed class overlapped with the class already covered by the Sitzer/Burnett settlement, and those members were barred by court order from joining Batton. In November 2025, Judge Hunt struck the certification motion without prejudice and stayed further briefing pending a related appeal.⁷

That appeal, before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, will decide whether buyers who also sold homes during the relevant period fall within the Sitzer/Burnett release and are therefore excluded from Batton. Oral arguments were held on January 14, 2026, with a ruling expected by late spring or early summer.⁸

The Keller Williams and RE/MAX Settlements

Keller Williams was the first defendant to settle. On February 3, 2026, it agreed to pay $20 million to resolve all claims against the company, its franchisees, and affiliated agents and teams. CEO Chris Czarnecki framed the deal as eliminating uncertainty, and Keller Williams denied liability.⁹⁶

RE/MAX followed with an $8.5 million settlement disclosed in an SEC filing dated March 25, 2026. It is structured in two installments: $1.5 million after preliminary court approval and $7 million after final approval and any appeals. It covers RE/MAX’s parent company, subsidiaries, affiliates, U.S. sub-franchisors, franchisees, and sales associates. RE/MAX denied the material allegations.¹

The combined $28.5 million fund is scheduled for a final approval hearing on July 28, 2026. The deadline for class members to object or opt out is June 23, 2026. Payments will be distributed on a pro rata basis after deduction of attorneys’ fees, expenses, service awards, and administration costs set by the court.¹⁰

Why the Case Is Currently Paused

The largest unresolved question is whether a separate case, Tuccori v. At World Properties, will effectively end Batton. Tuccori was filed in the Northern District of Illinois in January 2024, and after related cases were consolidated in October 2024, the court authorized an opt-in structure allowing other brokerages and organizations to resolve their homebuyer claims through the Tuccori framework.¹¹

On April 10, 2026, NAR announced it would opt in and pay $52.25 million into a global settlement fund over multiple years. The deal requires continued compliance with the practice changes already adopted under Sitzer/Burnett but adds no new rules. It releases NAR along with its members, state and local Realtor associations, Realtor-affiliated MLSs, non-Realtor MLSs, and qualifying brokerages.¹²

Other defendants and firms have joined too. Anywhere Real Estate agreed to pay just over $9.6 million; Hanna Holdings agreed to contribute $8.25 million; Douglas Elliman notified the court of its intent to join; and participants also include The Real Brokerage, The Keyes Company, Illustrated Properties, and Vanguard Properties.¹¹

On April 16, 2026, the Batton court granted NAR’s request for a stay, pausing the litigation. The court found that Batton and Tuccori involve substantially similar allegations and that a broad release in Tuccori could resolve the Batton claims. The parties must file a joint status report by June 2, 2026.²

The Reverse-Auction Fight

The Batton plaintiffs are contesting the Tuccori settlement. They call it a “reverse auction,” a term for when a defendant negotiates a cheaper deal with a weaker plaintiff class in a smaller case to wipe out more significant litigation elsewhere. In a February 24, 2026, filing, they sought a preliminary injunction to block Anywhere Real Estate from opting into Tuccori, arguing the deal would “extinguish five years of homebuyer antitrust litigation for a fraction of its value.”¹³

Anywhere’s attorneys responded that the negotiations had been overseen by a retired judge who “would not have tolerated improper behavior” and that fairness concerns belonged in the standard settlement-approval process, not an injunction. A district court denied the Batton plaintiffs’ motion. They appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, where the issue is pending.¹⁴

How Batton Differs From the Sitzer/Burnett Settlement

If you have read about the $418 million NAR settlement or the roughly $1 billion in combined defendant payments tied to the October 2023 Kansas City verdict, those figures come from Sitzer/Burnett and the related Moehrl case. Those settlements resolved claims brought by home sellers. The Ohio State Bar Association has confirmed that the homebuyer claims in Batton I and Batton II were explicitly left unresolved and remain pending in the Northern District of Illinois.¹⁵⁵ If you were a home seller, your claim was covered by Sitzer/Burnett. If you were a homebuyer, Batton and Tuccori are where your claim sits.

What Happens Next

Three decisions will shape whether Batton produces additional recovery or gets folded into Tuccori. The Seventh Circuit will rule on the plaintiffs’ reverse-auction appeal. The Eighth Circuit will decide who qualifies as a Batton class member under the Sitzer/Burnett release. And the Tuccori court will weigh whether its own settlement is fair to the homebuyer class the Batton plaintiffs have spent five years trying to represent.⁸⁷

For homebuyers who may fall within the settled portion of Batton, the immediate dates that matter are the June 23, 2026, deadline to object or opt out of the Keller Williams and RE/MAX deals and the July 28, 2026, final approval hearing.¹⁰

1
Stock Titan. RE/MAX Holdings Inc. Reports Material Event
2
National Association of Realtors. Illinois Court Grants NAR’s Request for a Stay in Batton Case
3
GovInfo. Batton v. National Association of Realtors
4
Real Estate News. Batton Suit Seeks Class Status, Estimates Billions in Damages
5
Supreme Court of the United States. Amicus Brief, No. 25-326
6
HousingWire. Keller Williams Batton Settlement
7
Inman. NAR Scores a Victory in Buyer Commission Lawsuit
8
Real Estate News. Appellants Have Their Final Say About Commissions Settlements
9
The Real Deal. Keller Williams Settles Batton Commission Case
10
Dapeer Law. Keller Williams RE/MAX Homebuyer Settlement
11
Real Estate News. NAR, Elliman Opt Into Tuccori Homebuyer Settlement
12
National Association of Realtors. National Association of Realtors Reaches Agreement to Resolve Nationwide Homebuyer Claims
13
RISMedia. Batton Tuccori Anywhere Reverse Auction
14
Real Estate News. Anywhere Rejects Batton Plaintiffs’ Reverse Auction Claims
15
Ohio State Bar Association. NAR Settlement Brings New Changes to Buying and Selling Real Estate