Buyer agency agreements changed significantly between 2024 and 2025, and Washington brokers are still adjusting their process to match. This post explains what changed nationally, what Washington's own agency law already required before that, and how the two now work together.
What the NAR Settlement Changed
The National Association of Realtors settled litigation over how buyer-broker compensation was communicated through the MLS. As part of that settlement, taking effect August 17, 2024, brokers working with buyers through an MLS-participating firm are required to have a written agreement with the buyer in place before touring a home, whether the tour is in person or a live virtual walkthrough.
The settlement also removed the practice of offering buyer-broker compensation through the MLS listing itself. Compensation is now negotiated directly between the parties involved, rather than set as a fixed field on the listing.
What matters for Washington brokers and buyers is how these national changes interact with requirements that were already in place under state law.
What Must Be in Writing, and When
Washington's own agency law, RCW 18.86, has required a written agreement for a broker to be compensated in a real estate transaction since long before the NAR settlement. A significant revision to that chapter, effective January 1, 2024, tightened the requirement further: to receive compensation from any party, a firm must have a services agreement in place that meets specific content requirements, and that agreement must generally be entered into as soon as reasonably practical after the broker begins rendering services to the buyer.
In practice, "as soon as reasonably practical after commencing services" and the settlement's "before touring a home" now point to the same moment for most transactions: a showing is typically the first service a buyer's broker provides, so the written agreement needs to be signed before that showing happens. NWMLS's current form for this is Form 41, the Buyer Broker Services Agreement. The timing requirement is specific: the agreement has to be signed before the showing, not at some point after.
What the Agreement Must Include
The compensation terms in a buyer broker services agreement can't be open-ended. Washington law and the settlement's MLS-participant requirements both call for a specific, conspicuous disclosure of how much the buyer's broker will be paid, stated as a defined amount, a flat fee, or a percentage rate, rather than a reference to whatever the seller happens to be offering. The agreement also has to include a term that prevents the broker from accepting compensation from any source that exceeds the amount the buyer agreed to pay.
That second point is easy to skip past, but it's the one that actually protects a buyer from a surprise: even if a seller ends up offering more than what's in the buyer's agreement, the broker can't collect more than the agreed figure.
How Compensation Works Now
A seller can still choose to offer to pay the buyer's broker. What's changed is how that offer gets communicated. It's no longer listed as a fixed field on the MLS listing; instead, it's communicated through the listing broker's own marketing, direct conversation between brokers, or as part of the offer itself.
That leaves a handful of common scenarios once an offer is on the table:
- The seller's offer matches the buyer's agreement. The transaction proceeds as it would have before the settlement, just with the number arrived at through direct communication instead of an MLS field.
- The seller offers less than the agreed amount. The buyer either covers the gap directly or renegotiates with their broker before moving forward.
- The seller offers nothing. The buyer is responsible for the fee in their agreement, whether paid directly or built into how the offer itself is structured.
- The buyer negotiates broker compensation into the purchase agreement. Some buyers address the fee as a term of the offer itself, rather than as a separate payment outside the transaction.
None of these are new legal categories. They're the situations a compensation conversation now has to address, since the MLS no longer settles the question automatically.
How to Have the Conversation
The hardest part of this shift isn't the paperwork. It's that the compensation conversation now has to happen before a buyer has any experience of what their broker actually does for them. A buyer is being asked to agree to a fee for services they haven't seen yet, based on trust in the broker rather than a track record with them specifically.
Framing. A buyer signing a services agreement before their first showing is agreeing to a fee before they've seen the value that fee is meant to cover. Brokers who name that directly, rather than rushing past it, tend to get a more honest conversation in return.
Objections. The most common pushback is some version of "why should I sign anything before I've even looked at a house." A straightforward answer is that the agreement covers the services being provided, not a specific home, and that its terms, including the fee, are negotiable rather than fixed.
Explaining value versus selling. There's a real difference between describing what a broker actually does across a transaction and making a pitch for why a particular broker is the best choice. The first is useful to a buyer regardless of who they end up working with. The second usually comes across as self-promotion, which is exactly what it is.
Working together without a broad commitment. A buyer who wants to see one specific house without committing to a broader relationship is a normal, common request. The agreement doesn't have to lock in more than the buyer actually wants at that stage; its scope, like its fee, is a negotiable term rather than a fixed one.
None of this is a script, and it shouldn't be treated as one. The shape of a good conversation here is consistent: name what's being signed, explain what it covers, and let the buyer's actual questions drive the rest.
What Happens If the Agreement Is Missing or Defective
This isn't legal advice, and any specific situation should be discussed with an attorney, but the practical risk is worth stating. A missing agreement, a compensation term that's vague or open-ended instead of specific, or a showing that happened before the agreement was signed, all create exposure. A broker in that position may have provided services without the written authorization Washington law requires to be paid for them, and a buyer in that position may have grounds to walk away from the relationship entirely. Getting the timing and the content right isn't a formality; it's what makes the rest of the transaction enforceable.
For consumers who want a more in-depth explanation of what happens between an accepted offer and closing, the First-Time Buyer's Guide covers the sequence in more detail. Brokers evaluating how their own brokerage's compensation model and support structure compare can find current details on the Skyline Careers page, and What to Ask Any Washington Brokerage Before You Sign covers the compensation-disclosure questions worth putting to any firm.
Buyers in fast-moving submarkets, where the compensation conversation tends to come up earlier, may also find the Bellevue area page useful for local context.
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