NC wins lawsuit against real estate firm over predatory lending, robocalls
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Judge voids MV Realty’s 40-year listing contracts and bars fee enforcement.
- Court found nearly 150,000 Do Not Call violations and over 340,000 robocalls.
- State sued after 2,100+ residents reported deceptive Homeowner Benefit Agreements.
More than 2,100 North Carolinians are free from MV Realty’s 40‑year listing contracts after a judge ruled the agreements “deceptive and unlawful.”
The Florida-based firm, which has operated in North Carolina since 2020, is now barred from “enforcing fees, liens, or title claims tied to the deals,” wrote Wake County Judge Mark Davis in the 49-page ruling filed on Jan. 16.
The court also found the brokerage violated North Carolina’s Telephone Solicitation Act by making nearly 150,000 calls to numbers on the Do Not Call Registry and placing “more than 340,000 robocalls” to North Carolina residents.
But the judge deferred the state’s request for an award of restitution and civil penalties “until a later date.”
“This decision is a major win for North Carolina homeowners and a clear message that deceptive agreements undermining property rights will not be tolerated,” said Caroline Cone, director of state government affairs at the American Land Title Association. “Homeowners should never face hidden or unreasonable restraints on their ability to sell, refinance or pass on their property due to misleading contracts that cloud title and threaten financial security.”
Attorney General Jeff Jackson also praised the outcome.
“MV Realty built a business model on deception and trapped North Carolinians in decades-long contracts they had no realistic way to escape,” he said in a release. “This ruling holds MV Realty and its executives accountable and shuts the door on these scams in North Carolina.”
On Wednesday, MV Realty was unavailable for comment.
The ruling caps years of complaints from residents who said they were misled into signing the firm’s “Homeowner Benefit Agreements” (HBA) that offered a few hundred dollars upfront in exchange for decades of control over their future home sales.
In practice, the contracts locked families into exclusive listing deals for 40 years and required them to pay MV Realty a commission of up to 6%, even if they sold their homes without the company’s involvement.
In late 2022, The N&O’s media partner, ABC11, and its Troubleshooter reporter, Diane Wilson, first investigated MV Realty.
The Department of Justice also received about 60 complaints beginning in March 2022 and began looking into the company in the fall of 2022.
It said MV Realty enrolled more than 2,100 homeowners in North Carolina in their predatory scheme.
In March 2023, then-Attorney General Josh Stein, now governor, filed a lawsuit, in what was called the “first of its kind.”
“MV Realty is preying on vulnerable people, and my office is taking them to court to put them out of business,” Stein said at the time.
The firm compounded the harm by filing misleading documents with county deed offices, he said, creating the appearance that the contracts bound future heirs and encumbered property titles.
In response to these practices, legislators worked to pass the Unfair Real Estate Agreements Act, signed into law in 2023, which prohibits these types of long-term real estate service agreements in the future.
It passed the House and the Senate unanimously.
This story was originally published February 13, 2026 at 12:00 PM.
