The New Buyer Agency Rules: What Changed for TCs in 2025
2024 gave us the NAR settlement. 2025 gave us the implementation.
That distinction matters. The settlement agreement set the national framework in August 2024. But 2025 was when the industry actually lived under the new buyer agency rules, when state laws codified and extended the federal requirements, when form contracts got revised multiple times to reflect what was working and what wasn't, and when transaction coordinators across the country figured out — in real time — what the new workflow actually looked like.
By the end of 2025, a set of patterns had stabilized. The TC role had changed meaningfully. New workflows had emerged. Old ones had died. Compliance expectations had tightened. If you're a TC, agent, or brokerage operator who set up your buyer-side workflow in late 2024 and hasn't revisited it since, you're probably running an outdated playbook.
Here's what actually changed for TCs through 2025, what the settled-in 2026 baseline looks like, and where the loose ends still are.
Quick recap: the federal framework
The August 17, 2024 NAR settlement practice changes required two things relevant to buyer-side work:
1. Written buyer-broker agreements before home tours. Any MLS participant working with a buyer must enter into a written agreement before showing a property, in person or virtually (NAR Settlement FAQs). The agreement must specify the agent's compensation as an objectively ascertainable amount (flat fee, percentage, hourly — not a range).
2. No buyer-broker compensation offers on the MLS. Listing brokers can still offer cooperative compensation, but not through the MLS. Off-MLS channels (listing broker websites, direct communication, broker-to-broker agreements) are the new normal.
That was the federal floor. What happened in 2025 was states stacking additional requirements on top — and TCs having to track all of it, file by file, state by state.
The state-level layering that defined 2025
Federal settlement rules set the minimum. State legislation and updated state forms set what TCs actually had to work with.
California — AB 2992. The most consequential state law of 2025. Effective January 1, 2025, California codified the buyer-broker agreement requirement as state law (CA DRE Advisory; AIDE Real Estate). What makes AB 2992 distinctive: the agreement must be signed "as soon as practicable, but no later than the execution of the buyer's offer to purchase real property" — and the agreement expiration cannot exceed three months from execution. That's a specific, enforceable, state-law-level requirement, separate from the federal settlement's "before home tours" language.
AB 2992 also mandated that the agreement include compensation terms, services to be rendered, when compensation is due, and the expiration date. For TCs, this meant tracking a specific agreement timeline per buyer, not just a one-time signing event.
Texas — TREC Form Updates. Texas Real Estate Commission rolled out updated forms effective January 3, 2025, including revisions to Paragraph 12A and related compensation provisions in TREC contracts (Freedom RES). The updates clarified how broker compensation is documented and disclosed post-settlement. TCs in Texas had to verify buyer representation agreements and commission structures were complete at contract intake — a new compliance checkpoint that didn't exist pre-2025.
Colorado. Colorado already required buyer agency agreements pre-settlement, so the transition was smoother — but post-settlement updates required the agreements to specify exact compensation amounts, not just agency relationships (Mountain Living Real Estate).
North Carolina. NCREC Rule 58A .0104(a) had long required written agency agreements; 2025 brought revisions to ensure compliance with the settlement's compensation disclosure requirements (NCREC Bulletins).
The Northeast states Signed to Keys serves — PA, NJ, NY, MD, CT, and DE — each rolled out updated state forms through 2025 to align with the settlement. Most didn't pass new state statutes (yet), but form revisions, mandatory disclosure language updates, and brokerage compliance policy changes created a similar end effect: more paperwork, more documentation, more tracking.
The cumulative effect across every state: the buyer-broker agreement went from a one-time form to a tracked document with a lifecycle. And TCs became the custodians of that lifecycle.
What actually changed in TC workflows through 2025
Here are the concrete workflow changes TCs made over the course of 2025:
1. Buyer intake became a documented process
Pre-2024, TCs had little involvement in buyer intake — the agent worked with the buyer, the relationship was informal, paperwork started when an offer went in. Through 2025, that changed for nearly every serious TC operation. Intake now has structure:
Buyer contact info captured formally
Buyer-broker agreement prepared and sent (usually via e-signature)
Agreement term, geographic scope, compensation, and expiration date logged into the transaction management system
Agreement stored with the buyer's file, ready to be referenced or renewed
Calendar reminders set for agreement expiration (especially in states like CA with the 3-month cap)
TCs who didn't build this workflow in early 2025 ended up rebuilding it under pressure later in the year, usually after a compliance flag or an agreement expiration sneaking up on an active buyer.
2. Agreement renewals became a standing task
Because agreements now have defined expiration dates, an active buyer who's been house-hunting for four months in California needs a new or extended agreement before they can continue touring. This is a workflow reality that didn't exist in 2023.
TCs who do buyer-side work now typically have a standing report:
Active buyer-broker agreements
Days until each expires
Which buyers are currently actively touring
Which agreements need renewal conversations
This is ongoing operational work that continues regardless of whether the buyer is currently under contract. It added permanent overhead — and value — to the TC role.
3. Compensation reconciliation became a checkpoint
One of the biggest 2025 workflow shifts. Every file now has multiple compensation documents that need to match:
Buyer-broker agreement compensation
Purchase contract compensation language (where seller is contributing)
Broker-to-broker agreement (where applicable)
Final ALTA compensation disbursements
Pre-settlement, the ALTA was the single source of truth. Post-settlement, all four documents need to match — and mismatches create brokerage compliance issues that have to be resolved before closing.
Good TC workflows in 2025 added a "compensation reconciliation check" as a standard checkpoint, usually before closing prep. TCs who caught mismatches early saved hours of last-minute scrambling; TCs who didn't spent those hours doing the scrambling.
4. Concession structuring got more sophisticated
With cooperative compensation moving off the MLS, seller concessions became a more common mechanism for getting buyer-broker fees covered. But concessions have to be structured carefully:
Lender rules on interested party contributions (IPC) vary by loan type (conventional, FHA, VA)
Some concessions can cover buyer-broker compensation, others can't
Concession language in the purchase contract has to align with buyer-broker agreement terms
The final ALTA has to allocate concessions across closing costs, buyer-broker fees, repairs, etc.
Through 2025, TCs became the operational hub for getting this structuring right. The ones who understood lender rules and ALTA allocation became noticeably more valuable than the ones who didn't.
5. Pre-offer documentation became the TC's responsibility
Pre-settlement, a TC's involvement in any given file typically began at executed contract. By mid-2025, most TCs had expanded scope to include pre-offer documentation — buyer-broker agreements, compensation disclosures, and any pre-contract disclosure packages.
This was partly a necessity (someone had to handle the paperwork) and partly a deliberate repositioning (TCs who expanded scope added value and charged more for it). Either way, it's now a standard expectation for mid-tier and high-end TC services.
6. Compliance audits got more intrusive
Brokerage compliance teams tightened through 2025. The reasoning: plaintiffs' attorneys were still actively monitoring settlement compliance, and any brokerage with loose documentation was a target (Century 21 Jordan-Link).
For TCs, this meant:
More documents reviewed per file
More back-and-forth with compliance on minor inconsistencies
Files sitting longer in compliance review before closing
More post-closing compliance work (document corrections, signature chasing)
TCs with strong documentation discipline sailed through. TCs without ended up doing a lot of correction work.
7. Buyer education moved earlier
Pre-settlement, agents (with or without a TC) explained commissions to buyers when the contract was being drafted. Post-settlement, the conversation has to happen at the very start — before any showings — because that's when the buyer-broker agreement gets signed.
Many TCs stepped into this role through 2025, either by preparing buyer information materials, joining intake calls, or drafting the plain-language explanations that agents use to walk buyers through the agreement. This represented a meaningful expansion into client-facing communication that TCs historically didn't do.
What settled by the end of 2025
By early 2026, the buyer-side workflow had a recognizable shape across most TC operations. Here's what "standard" now looks like:
Intake stage (before showings):
Buyer contact logged
Buyer-broker agreement drafted, signed, and filed
Agreement terms (duration, compensation, scope, expiration) logged in TMS
Buyer education materials sent
Pre-approval verified
Showing stage (before offer):
Agreement renewal tracking active
Compensation structure considered for anticipated offer scenarios
Pre-offer disclosures prepared where required
Offer stage:
Purchase contract compensation language reconciled with buyer-broker agreement
Seller concession language (if any) aligned with buyer compensation needs
Broker-to-broker compensation agreement executed where applicable
Contract-to-close stage:
Standard TC workflow, with added compensation reconciliation check before closing
Post-closing:
ALTA compensation disbursements verified against buyer-broker agreement
File closed out with compliance
Compensation-related documents archived
Every one of those stages had TC involvement by end of 2025. Every one of them required structured documentation that wasn't part of the 2023 workflow.
The Northeast-specific patterns
A few observations specific to the states Signed to Keys serves — PA, NJ, NY, MD, CT, and DE:
Attorney-state reinforcement. In NJ, NY, CT, and MD, buyer's attorneys caught most compensation inconsistencies that TCs missed. This created an informal second compliance layer that reduced the consequences of TC mistakes but also embarrassed TCs whose work had to be corrected by the attorney.
NY co-ops got messier. Co-op board packages in NYC now often require review of the buyer-broker agreement, creating an additional disclosure point for the TC to manage.
Multi-state licensure increased complexity. Agents licensed across PA, NJ, and NY have to manage three different state form requirements, three different compliance structures, and three different brokerage compliance policies. TCs serving these agents have to be fluent in all of them.
Concession customs varied. PA and NJ had more standardized concession practices; NY has more variability in how buyer-broker compensation gets handled through concessions; MD and CT evolved slower through 2025 but caught up by year-end.
What this means for TCs entering 2026
Three things to take away:
1. The buyer-broker agreement is now core TC work. If you're a TC who only touches files at executed contract, you're running a 2023 playbook. The work has moved forward, and the pre-offer phase is now part of standard TC scope.
2. State-specific expertise is more valuable, not less. With state laws layering on top of federal rules, single-state specialists who know their forms cold — and multi-state specialists who know all their states cold — are more valuable than generalists. The "I'll figure it out" approach to state form variation stopped working in 2025.
3. Compensation reconciliation is a skill. The ability to verify that every document in a file agrees on the compensation numbers — and to catch and correct mismatches before they become compliance issues — is now a differentiator. TCs who can do this well are running cleaner files than TCs who can't.
What this means for agents in 2026
If your TC isn't handling buyer-broker agreements, you're probably doing that work yourself when you could be prospecting or serving clients. If your TC doesn't do a compensation reconciliation check before closing, you're exposed to compliance issues that should have been caught upstream. If your TC doesn't know the specific rules for each state you work in, you're accumulating small mistakes that will eventually add up to a problem.
The shift in 2025 wasn't just a regulatory shift — it was a shift in what a competent TC workflow actually looks like. Agents who revisited their TC setup during 2025 ended up with cleaner, more defensible, more scalable operations. Agents who didn't ended up playing catch-up in early 2026.
The one-line summary
2024 was the settlement. 2025 was the implementation. What changed for TCs was that buyer-side work expanded from "contract-to-close" to "relationship-to-close" — adding buyer-broker agreement management, compensation reconciliation, concession structuring, and state-by-state compliance tracking as standard responsibilities. TCs who built these workflows in 2025 are running the cleanest files in the industry going into 2026. TCs who haven't are still catching up to a new baseline that's already been established.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the most significant 2025 change for TCs working on the buyer side?
The buyer-broker agreement becoming a tracked document with a lifecycle. Pre-2024, buyer representation was informal paperwork that happened at offer time. In 2025, it became a formal agreement signed before home tours, with specific terms, expiration dates (especially in California, capped at 3 months under AB 2992), and compliance implications for every downstream document.
How did California's AB 2992 change TC workflows specifically?
AB 2992 codified the buyer-broker agreement requirement as California state law effective January 1, 2025, with specific provisions — the agreement must be signed no later than the execution of the buyer's offer, expiration cannot exceed 3 months, and the agreement must include compensation, services, and termination terms (CA DRE Advisory). For TCs, this meant creating a renewal tracking workflow for buyers still house-hunting past the 90-day mark.
What does "compensation reconciliation" actually mean?
Ensuring that the compensation figure on the buyer-broker agreement matches the compensation language in the purchase contract, matches any broker-to-broker agreement, and matches what shows up on the final ALTA. Pre-settlement, the ALTA was the single source of truth. Post-settlement, all of these documents need to agree, and TCs are the operational checkpoint that catches mismatches (NAR Professional Standards 2026).
Did buyer-broker compensation caps change in 2025?
Not by rule, but the settlement established that agents cannot receive compensation from any source that exceeds the amount specified in the buyer-broker agreement (NAR). This created a real compliance constraint: if the agreement says 2.5% and the seller is offering 3%, the agent cannot accept the extra 0.5% — it has to be redirected or the agreement has to be amended.
How has seller concession handling changed?
Seller concessions became a more common mechanism for covering buyer-broker compensation, since cooperative compensation can no longer be communicated on the MLS. TCs now regularly track concession allocation across multiple buyer costs — closing costs, loan origination fees, repairs, and buyer-broker compensation — while ensuring the structure complies with lender rules on interested party contributions.
What forms changed through 2025?
Nearly all state forms got revised at least once, and many multiple times. California's C.A.R. Residential Purchase Agreement was revised to include compensation disclosure; Texas TREC forms were updated effective January 3, 2025; state-specific buyer representation agreements across the Northeast got revised to align with the settlement. TCs had to stay current on the latest version in each state they work in (Freedom RES; AIDE Real Estate).
Are TCs now expected to handle pre-offer work?
Yes, increasingly. Through 2025, the industry norm shifted to TCs handling buyer-broker agreements, compensation disclosures, and pre-offer paperwork as part of standard scope. TCs who continued to pick up files only at executed contract were treated as limited-scope providers, and their pricing reflected that.
How did compliance audits change in 2025?
Brokerage compliance teams tightened substantially. More documents reviewed per file, more back-and-forth on minor inconsistencies, more files held in compliance review before closing, and more post-closing compliance work. TCs with strong documentation discipline sailed through; TCs without spent significant time on corrections (Century 21 Jordan-Link, 2026).
Did the settlement and 2025 changes affect TC pricing?
Somewhat. The expanded scope (buyer-broker agreements, compensation reconciliation, concession structuring) has justified higher pricing for TCs delivering that expanded service. But the industry also saw AI-driven efficiency gains that kept pricing pressure steady. The net effect: pricing stayed roughly flat while the work got meaningfully more complex — rewarding TCs who operate efficiently and penalizing those who don't.
What state had the most disruptive buyer-agency changes in 2025?
California, by a significant margin. AB 2992 went well beyond the federal settlement requirements, adding specific time windows, expiration caps, and required agreement terms (LA Metro Home Finder, 2026). TCs working in California had to overhaul their workflows more substantially than TCs in most other states.
What should agents ask a TC about post-settlement workflow?
Four questions: (1) Do you handle buyer-broker agreements as part of standard scope? (2) How do you reconcile compensation across documents before closing? (3) How do you handle agreement renewals for active buyers? (4) Are you current on the state forms for every state I work in? Good answers reflect 2025-era workflows. Vague or outdated answers reflect 2023-era workflows.
What's still unsettled heading into 2026?
A few open questions remain: how state laws will continue to evolve (more states may pass statutes like California's AB 2992), how plaintiffs' attorneys will continue to pursue settlement compliance, how lender treatment of buyer-broker compensation might change, and how state licensing boards will handle enforcement. Expect the buyer-agency regulatory layer to continue evolving — which is itself an argument for working with TCs who specialize in staying current.
Want a TC whose workflow was built for the post-2025 buyer-agency reality? Signed to Keys handles buyer-broker agreements, compensation reconciliation, concession structuring, and state-by-state compliance tracking across PA, NJ, NY, MD, CT, and DE. Request a free 30-minute consultation and we'll walk through how modern buyer-side coordination should look.