Welcome to the final edition of Legal Matters for 2024: Previewing forms changes for 2025, providing additional guidance on business practice and broker compensation changes coming from the (now formally approved) NAR settlement and addressing other timely legal topics. 

IAR's Legal Department has created an overview of changes coming to our statewide legal forms library for 2025 (effective January 2nd) - click below for a form-by-form preview:

The following legal forms will be eliminated from the IAR Forms Library effective January 2nd, 2025:

The following legal forms had significant revisions/updates:

A few changes were made to IAR's commercial forms library during the mid-year 2024 update (released July 1st) that will carry forward on the 2025 versions.

One new commercial form will be available in 2025, the Sublease Listing Agreement.

IAR forms will no longer contain a standard option of offering broker-to-broker compensation with pre-printed language to reduce antitrust risk for members and member brokerages. This involves the following changes:

Offers of compensation off the MLS are still permitted under the terms of the NAR settlement and member brokerages may continue to allow offers of compensation, using their own forms and providing appropriate guidance to their brokers.

IAR General Counsel Richelle Cohen Mossler describes the reasoning behind these changes in this video message released before Thanksgiving:

In 2021, Congress passed the federal Anti-Money Laundering and Corporate Transparency Acts to close anti-money laundering loopholes – but these laws also create new requirements that may impact some brokerages and real estate transactions.

IAR Legal Counsel Richelle Cohen Mossler explained ownership reporting requirements and new reporting and recordkeeping rules on non-financed (cash) real estate purchases and property transfers to trusts or business entities taking effect in late 2025.

Since Richelle recorded this video, an appeal and court injunction has paused the beneficial ownership reporting requirements (see "Alert: Impact of Ongoing Litigation" on the Financial Crimes Reporting Network website), so no immediate action is required - we'll report on any updates affecting brokerages. 

In July, IAR released a number of consumer-focused ‘explainers’ to help members through their conversations with prospects and clients on the NAR settlement, buyer agency agreements, compensation options and the REALTOR® value.

These guides and other Indiana-specific resources related to the settlement are collected on our website – click below:

IAR Senior Staff Counsel Kelly Shonborn returned to correct some misunderstandings on buyer representation issues (keep in mind that discussion of the Broker Compensation Agreement won’t be relevant to the 2025 editions of IAR’s legal forms):

IAR Legal Counsel Richelle Cohen Mossler provides an update on NAR settlement practice changes ahead of the August 17th deadline. (In this video, Richelle notes that offers of compensation are prohibited off the MLS but still permitted between listing and buyer brokers; this remains the case, though offers of compensation are no longer a standard option offers in IAR’s transactional legal forms.)

After Indiana’s requirement for written buyer representation agreements took effect in July, IAR Senior Staff Counsel Kelly Shonborn provided a brief refresher of relevant concepts in Indiana agency law:

Get a virtual (Zoom) briefing on forms changes and other issues from the IAR Legal Department coming in January. Register for the Virtual Legal Update on Thursday, January 9th at 10:00AM (Eastern). And the following day, check out the Virtual Legislative Outlook for a discussion of our 2025 advocacy priorities - Friday, January 10th at 12:00 noon (Eastern).