The rift between the National Association of Realtors and Mauricio Umansky’s thePLS.com has taken a new turn, with NAR issuing a subpoena to the American Real Estate Association and its co-founder, Jason Haber.
The subpoena asks that ARA and Haber hand over any documents, contracts, invoices and all communications between ARA, thePLS.com and theNLS.com, the Spanish counterpart of PLS. NAR also highlighted interest in communications about its Clear Cooperation Policy and the NAR Accountability Project, which Haber launched in 2023 on the heels of sexual misconduct allegations against former NAR President Kenny Parcell.
Jason Haber | LinkedIn
NAR issued the subpoena in May, giving ARA and Haber until June 18 to hand over documents dating back to January 1, 2017. However, Haber said in an Instagram post on Monday morning that neither he nor ARA will meet NAR’s request, given that it would “include highly sensitive conversations with victims who came forward about harassment inside NAR.”
“The NAR Accountability Project shut down before ARA even existed. I’ll leave it to you to ask what its files have to do with a case about private listings,” he said. “ARA is objecting in the strongest possible terms. We will not allow a legal filing about a listing network to compromise the privacy of people who had the courage to come forward.”
NAR and thePLS.com have been in the courts since 2020, when thePLS.com filed an antitrust lawsuit against NAR after the association adopted the Clear Cooperation Policy, which at the time required Realtors to submit their listings to NAR-affiliated multiple listing services within 24 hours of publicly marketing those listings.
NAR and thePLS.com previously reached an agreement to dismiss the case but left open the possibility of refiling it at a later date, as explained in a previous Inman article.
“Where we landed is that we gave them a tolling agreement on the statute of limitations to give us time to figure out whether or not we were amenable to repealing the Clear Cooperation Policy,” former NAR outside legal counsel Ethan Glass said at a hearing in 2024.
Umansky and thePLS.com revived the lawsuit in July 2025, arguing that NAR’s CCP — even with the addition of delayed-marketing exempt listings under the Multiple Listing Options for Sellers policy — remains anticompetitive.
“The surge in consumer demand for pocket listings, and the rise of a listing network to market pocket listings effectively, was a competitive threat to the viability of the NAR-affiliated MLS system,” the July 2025 complaint read. “These market changes also threatened NAR’s ability to control competition in the residential real estate brokerage industry.”
“Through the Clear Cooperation Policy, NAR and the MLS conspirators eliminated the possibility of a more competitive future in the market for residential real estate listing network services,” it added. “A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for competition in a monopolized market has been lost. NAR’s conduct has harmed competition and consumers, and is illegal.”
NAR responded to thePLS.com’s suit in September, categorically denying the network’s antitrust claims, saying that Umansky and thePLS.com have not experienced any “antitrust injury.”
“The NAR policy and NAR conduct identified in thePLS.com’s amended complaint are lawful, justified, procompetitive, pro-consumer; are carried out in NAR’s legitimate business interests; and constitute bona fide competitive activity, the benefits of which outweigh any alleged anticompetitive effects,” NAR said.
Inman has reached out to NAR about Haber’s post and next steps, now that the subpoena deadline has passed. We will update the story when comment is available.
As for Haber, the ARA founder said he’s prepared to fight NAR’s request.
“The commitments I made while running the NAR Accountability Project still stand,” he said. “We will fight this. And we will protect the people who deserve to be protected.”
Read the full subpoena below:
