The NAR Settlement Audit Checklist for Listing Agents (22 Items, Printable)

Settlement compliance stopped being theoretical in 2025. Plaintiff attorneys have demanded compliance documentation from at least 25 MLSs and associations and have said they'll take noncompliance to the court. MLSs must self-certify compliance with mandatory policy effective January 2026 — which means they're auditing their participants so they can certify with a straight face. And "touring agreements" designed to sidestep the written-agreement rule are getting specific scrutiny.

If you're a listing agent or run a listing-side team, the question isn't whether your practices will ever be examined — it's whether you can produce evidence when they are. This checklist covers the 22 items an auditor, association grievance committee, or opposing counsel will look for, and how to evidence each one.

Print the 22-item checklist

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How to use this checklist

Run it quarterly against a sample of your own closed and active files — the same way an MLS compliance reviewer would. For every item, the standard isn't "we do this." It's "here's the document, with a date on it." If an item fails the document test, it fails.

Part A: Listing agreements and seller disclosures (items 1–6)

Listing agreement states the listing-side compensation objectively.

Flat fee, percentage, or hourly — never open-ended.

Evidence: Signed listing agreement.

Any seller offer of buyer-side compensation is documented in writing, with the seller's informed consent.

The settlement allows seller-paid buyer-agent compensation — just not on the MLS. The decision must be the seller's, documented.

Evidence: Signed compensation addendum or listing agreement clause.

The seller was told, in conspicuous writing, that compensation is not set by law and is fully negotiable.

The settlement requires this disclosure in the listing agreement itself (unless it's a government-specified form) — and listing agreements signed before August 2024 had to be amended or supplemented with it.

Evidence: Conspicuous disclosure language in the listing agreement (or amendment) with the seller's signature or initials.

Seller concessions (if offered via MLS) are not conditioned on the use of or payment to a buyer broker.

The settlement expressly permits communicating seller concessions — like buyer closing costs — on the MLS, but only if they aren't tied to buyer-broker compensation.

Evidence: MLS listing input sheet and concessions field language.

No listing document promises to share compensation "per MLS" or references MLS compensation fields.

Those fields no longer exist; legacy template language referencing them is a red flag that your forms predate August 2024.

Evidence: Current form templates, version-dated.

Dual/variable rate commissions are documented in the listing agreement — and never on the MLS.

The MLS dual/variable rate field was removed on August 16, 2024, and the Code of Ethics obligation to affirmatively disclose these arrangements to cooperating brokers (old Standard of Practice 3-4) was deleted effective January 1, 2026. The arrangement still belongs, clearly, in your listing agreement, and state law or local MLS rules may impose their own disclosure duties. A legacy variable-rate notation surviving anywhere in MLS data is an instant flag.

Evidence: Listing agreement clause + your MLS's current local rule.

Part B: Compensation communication (items 7–12)

No offers of compensation appear anywhere on the MLS — including remarks fields.

Auditors run keyword scans on public and private remarks ("BAC," "co-op," "2.5%," "compensation"). Coded language counts.

Evidence: Listing printouts; remarks history.

Off-MLS compensation communications are documented, specific, and consistent.

If you communicate seller-offered compensation by email, text, flyer, or your own website, every statement should match the signed seller authorization. See our commission disclosure best practices guide.

Evidence: Copies of each communication.

Every disclosure went out before the showing, not after.

Timing is the most commonly failed item. A disclosure sent after the tour — or at offer time — doesn't cure the miss.

Evidence: Timestamped sends.

The same compensation information went to every inquiring buyer agent.

Inconsistent disclosures across agents invite steering and fair-housing allegations.

Evidence: Disclosure log showing identical terms per property.

Nobody on your team received compensation exceeding what the buyer agreed with their broker.

Listing side rarely controls this, but if you facilitated a bonus or extra incentive to a buyer agent above their agreement amount, that's a settlement violation on the buyer side you helped create.

Evidence: Closing statements vs. communicated offers.

Compensation language in your marketing is negotiability-clean.

No "standard commission," no "full co-op," no implication that a rate is customary.

Evidence: Current marketing materials.

Part C: Showings, agreements, and the touring-agreement trap (items 13–17)

Buyer agents confirmed written buyer agreements where your MLS requires it.

Some MLSs put verification duties on the listing side for unrepresented or out-of-MLS showings. Know your MLS's rule.

Evidence: Showing confirmations.

Your own buyer-side showings (dual-hat situations) have signed agreements before the tour.

Listing agents showing their own listing to an unrepresented buyer generally don't need a buyer agreement — but the moment you start working with that buyer, you do.

Evidence: Signed agreements or documented unrepresented-buyer status.

No "touring agreements" used as a substitute for real buyer agreements.

Plaintiff counsel is explicitly hunting for these. A skinny agreement that exists only to get someone through a door, with compensation terms deferred, is exactly the workaround being challenged.

Evidence: The agreement forms themselves.

Open-house sign-ins distinguish represented from unrepresented visitors.

No agreement is required to attend an open house, but follow-up that turns into brokerage services triggers the requirement.

Evidence: Sign-in sheets + follow-up records.

Virtual tours follow the same rules as physical ones.

Live video walkthroughs are tours under the settlement.

Evidence: Showing logs including virtual appointments.

Part D: Records and audit trail (items 18–22)

Every transaction file reconstructs the disclosure timeline without human memory.

Who was told what, when, in what words. If reconstructing a file takes interviews, you don't have an audit trail — you have witnesses.

Evidence: Exportable per-property disclosure log.

Templates are versioned.

When language changes (a state law update, an MLS rule change), you can show which version was in force for which transaction. State rules diverge more every quarter. Our 50-state disclosure table tracks the current map.

Evidence: Dated template archive.

Records are retained for your jurisdiction's full retention period.

Most states require 3–5 years; the settlement's litigation tail argues for longer.

Evidence: Retention policy + oldest retrievable file.

Team members can't improvise compensation language.

Every agent and assistant sending showing replies uses approved, current language — enforced by workflow, not training alone.

Evidence: Your showing-response system's templates and permissions.

You can produce all of the above in days, not weeks.

Audit demands come with deadlines. A 25-MLS document sweep happened in 2025; the next one may include brokerages.

Evidence: Run a fire drill — time yourself producing a complete file.

Red flags that trigger deeper review

Auditors and grievance committees don't sample randomly once something looks off. The patterns that escalate a routine check into a full review: compensation keywords in MLS remarks, identical "bonus to selling agent" language across your listings, disclosure timestamps that cluster after showing times, touring agreements in transaction files, closing statements that don't match communicated compensation, and complaint history from cooperating agents. Any one of these turns a spot-check into a subpoena-shaped request.

The case for AI-logged audit trails

Every item above shares the same failure mode: a human under time pressure skipping a step and leaving no record of the skip. The fix isn't more training — it's making the compliant path the automatic one.

ShowSmartly's AI showing assistant bakes the checklist into the workflow: approved disclosure language inserted into every showing reply automatically, state-correct templates selected per listing, identical terms sent to every inquiring agent, and each send timestamped into a permanent, exportable log. Items 7–10, 12, 17, 18, 21, and 22 stop being things you remember to do and become things the system does. When the audit letter arrives, your answer is an export.

Frequently asked questions

Who actually audits settlement compliance?

Three layers: your MLS (rule compliance, including self-certification against NAR mandatory policy effective January 2026 under the updated MLS handbook), your local association (ethics and grievance complaints), and plaintiff counsel under the settlement's enforcement provisions — who demanded documentation from 25+ MLSs and associations in 2025.

What's the single most-failed item?

Timing (item 9). Most agents disclose; fewer can prove the disclosure preceded the showing. Timestamped, automated sends are the cleanest cure.

Are touring agreements banned?

Not by name — but agreements designed to defer compensation terms and dodge the written-agreement requirement are under direct scrutiny from settlement plaintiffs, and several MLSs prohibit them. Treat them as radioactive.

How long should I keep disclosure records?

Your state's record-retention rule sets the floor (commonly 3–5 years). Given ongoing settlement enforcement, keeping disclosure logs indefinitely costs almost nothing and protects against the long tail. See the 2025 and 2024 MLS-change summaries for the policy backdrop.

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