Alphabet soup
The fight for the fate of an MLS in Southern California is still plodding along, albeit slowly.
If you’ll recall, the North San Diego County Association of Realtors (NSDCAR) and the Pacific Southwest Association of Realtors (PSAR) are suing the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors (GSDAR) to terminate Sandicor’s status as a legal entity.
Long time coming
Based on some court documentation, after a motion hearing that lasted most of 2016, the case is set to go to trial on September 11, 2018. Additionally, the case is soon poised to enter the discovery phase; a motion for discovery was filed on August 18.
Sandicor is a regional MLS provider owned by the three aforementioned realtor associations.
Back in January, GSDAR sued the other two associations on eleven charges, all with an anti-trust angle to them. According to the plaintiff, the other two associations used their majority hold of the Sandicor board to cut off data access in violation of contracts and pushed the other association out of Sandicor decisions. In that time, the NSDCAR president suggested that GSDAR wasn’t cooperating with attempts to improve the Sandicor system.
Alternatives
A few alternative solutions have been proposed to the dissolution of the regional MLS. GSDAR filed a motion in October asking the court to let them buy out the other stakeholders. Sandicor also filed a motion claiming that the other two stakeholders do not have legal grounds to dissolve the MLS.
Both the PSAR and the NSDCAR filed a motion to dismiss part of the charges against them, but the judge denied that claim.
This means that NSDCAR and PSAR will have to answer for all eleven anti-trust complaints. In March of this year, a motion to continue was filed. An early resolution conference held in March attempted to settle the matter outside of trial, but the conference failed to resolve the issue.
Case details
In the case, the San Diego Association of Realtors is represented by three lawyers, all from Higgs, Fletcher and Mack. The North San Diego County Association of Realtors and the Pacific Southwest Association of Realtors, two defendants in the case, are represented by Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves and Savitch, LLP.
#CaliforniaDrama
