The Eighth Circuit just took away the last excuse to treat the buyer representation agreement as a temporary inconvenience. On August 19, 2026, a three judge panel unanimously affirmed the Sitzer/Burnett settlement, rejecting seven separate challenges from objectors who argued the deal shortchanged consumers. The practice changes that reshaped how homes get bought and sold two years ago are not provisional anymore. They are the rule, full stop.
Here's the recap, because it's worth having the exact terms straight before you're explaining them to a client for the hundredth time. The settlement required the National Association of Realtors to repeal its Cooperative Compensation Rule, the one that required sellers to offer compensation to buyer brokers through the MLS as a condition of listing. It also required buyer agents to sign a written agreement with clients before touring homes, one that discloses your compensation for a closed transaction and caps your eventual fee at whatever number is written down. NAR paid $418 million toward a settlement pool that, combined with other brokerages' contributions, tops $1 billion. The ruling covers brokerages that transacted under $2 billion in 2022 sales volume, and it explicitly named at least one brokerage, Brown Harris Stevens, that opted in outside NAR's own membership.
Why the affirmation actually changes something
A lot of agents have quietly treated the written agreement requirement as something that might still get undone on appeal, and that mindset shaped how the conversation got delivered. Soft, apologetic, framed as a formality your broker is making you do. That framing doesn't hold up anymore. The panel wrote that the practice changes address the challenged rules and attempt to remediate the harm, and found the district court didn't err in approving the settlement. Appeals are effectively over. This is the business now, not a rule in limbo.
That's actually good news for the conversation itself. Clients read hesitation. If you present the agreement like you're bracing for it to change, they will wonder why you're bracing. Presenting it as settled, standard, and the same paperwork every buyer agent in the country now uses removes the awkwardness that made this conversation hard in year one.
What to actually say
Lead with the reason before the form. Tell the buyer plainly that you can't tour homes with them until you've both agreed, in writing, on what you're being paid and for what. Then hand them a real number, not a range you plan to negotiate down if they push back. Buyers respect a specific figure more than they respect a vague promise that it's usually covered by the seller. Sometimes it still is, and you should say so directly rather than letting them assume.
The agents who treat this like a checkbox tend to get pushback. The ones who treat the signature as the first real conversation about value tend to get a client who already trusts them before the first showing.
Key Takeaway
The written buyer agreement is not a two year experiment anymore. It's confirmed, permanent, and every agent who still delivers it like an apology is giving buyers a reason to hesitate that doesn't need to exist. Say the terms plainly, put a real number on the page, and move on to the part of the job that actually wins the client: showing up prepared and knowing the inventory better than they do.
Get started here: https://housejet.com/partner
