Was reading about the Ryan Serhant Lawsuit (posted the real deal and Inman).
Now I don’t know all the details, but the articles report that part of the lawsuit is over agents leaving the brokerage to follow a former colleague,
My question is this - not even specific to that lawsuit but - if someone leaves a brokerage, are there any NAR rules COE, etc against that agent recruiting other agents from their former office?
Are non-compete or non-solicit agreements enforceable in real estate?
I’m not aware of any NAR rules or COE on this. I believe it’s whatever contract you signed with your Broker. If I leave I can go wherever I want to go and there is nothing in there about me taking other agents with me - they can leave whenever they want to based on the contract I signed, unless they have something different. I can even take my listings with me. If I have open transactions I also get paid at the closing for them.
but even if you had a contract, is it enforceable? Here in Canada, you can’t unreasonably restrict someone from making a living, and if you need to be at a brokerage or on a team to do so, then is it reasonable for the incumbent broker to be able to pick or dictate who you can or can’t go to?
I don’t know. I just read an article on it and it sure seems they used the proprietary property of KW for Serhant’s company while still working at KW. That doesn’t sound good. And then it seems they took what sounds to be everyone (or at least the main team/people), and the client database and even took over their social media accounts.
I’m not sure if this was a one-team brokerage, satellite office, or whatever KW calls it, but it sounds like nothing is left. The article called it a scheme, and although I have no feelings one way or the other about KW, this does sound like a highly planned ploy. I’m going to follow this (if I remember).