Compass Sues Nation’s Second Largest MLS to Give Homeowners the Freedom to Publicly Market Their Own Homes on Their Own Terms

NEW YORK - October 16, 2026 - Today, Compass, Inc. filed an antitrust lawsuit against California Regional Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS), the nation's second-largest MLS, over anticompetitive rules that fine and punish agents for publicly marketing homes as lawfully instructed by their clients.

Rather than allowing the homeowner to choose how to sell and market their home, with the advice of their trusted agent whose role it is to curate a marketing strategy tailored to an owner's specific needs and circumstances, CRMLS issues fines of up to $2,500 any time a real estate agent follows their client's lawful instructions to publicly market their property outside of CRMLS, and in some cases, they may face suspension or expulsion if they do not comply with CRMLS's rules. Builders and developers of new homes are not subject to these restrictive policies; individual homeowners should have the same rights and freedoms to market as developers and builders have for decades.

"Every single member of CRMLS's Board of Directors is a direct competitor of Compass and its agents, and they are dictating how Compass and its agents can and cannot compete, how Compass and its agents can and cannot serve their clients, and how homeowners can and cannot market their own homes," Compass writes in its Complaint. Only the law and the homeowner should tell agents how to market a home, and CRMLS is neither the law nor the homeowner.

Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) across the country have set a clear precedent for preserving consumer choice and competition. MLSs serving more than 350,000 brokers and agents in at least 12 states do not fine or punish agents for publicly marketing homes outside of the MLS as their clients lawfully instruct.

Effective immediately, Compass International Holdings will pay all CRMLS fines imposed on agents affiliated with its company-owned brokerages (Coldwell Banker Realty, Compass, Sotheby's International Realty) for publicly marketing homes outside of CRMLS at the lawful written direction of their clients. To receive this benefit, agents only need to submit the fine notice to [email protected] and assign their right to sue CRMLS to Compass. Compass will include those claims in its lawsuit against CRMLS.

Compass seeks a Court order ending CRMLS's competition-blocking rules and recovery of all damages from these anticompetitive rules, which the antitrust laws automatically triple.