Buyer broker agreements,
explained in plain English.

To tour a property with an agent, yes — since the National Association of Realtors settlement took effect in August 2024, a real estate agent who is a Realtor must have a written agreement with a buyer before touring a home. In Florida that agreement can be as narrow as a single-property showing or a short pre-touring arrangement; it does not have to be a long exclusive commitment. What it cannot be is nothing — the days of touring first and papering it later are over.

Florida Realtors publishes a family of forms. The Exclusive Buyer Brokerage Agreement covers a full engagement and comes in brokerage-relationship variants (single agent, transaction broker, transition, and no-brokerage-relationship). For lighter arrangements there is a Property Pre-Touring Agreement (PPTA-1) for casual tours without a long-term commitment and a Showing Agreement (SA-4) tied to specific properties. There is also a modification form to change the material terms of an active agreement. Form names and versions are updated periodically — confirm the current form and code with your brokerage or on floridarealtors.org.

The Compensation Agreement — Seller or Seller’s Broker to Buyer’s Broker (CASSB-1) is the merged Florida Realtors form that replaced the two earlier compensation forms (CASB-1 and CABB-1). It documents compensation offered to a buyer’s broker directly by the seller or the listing broker, and it keeps that compensation off the MLS — a core change from the NAR settlement. Its companion modification form is the MCSB-1. Its default duration is short (15 days) if the term blank is left empty.

Florida recognizes three: single agent (the brokerage owes you full fiduciary duties — loyalty, confidentiality, full disclosure), transaction broker (a limited form of representation that is Florida’s statutory default), and no brokerage relationship. The buyer agreement you sign names which relationship applies. We will walk you through the difference before you choose, because the duties owed to you are genuinely different under each.

Compensation is now negotiated and put in writing rather than assumed from an MLS field. It can be paid by the seller, by the seller’s broker (via the CASSB-1), by you the buyer, or by some combination — and it is spelled out in your buyer agreement before you tour or write an offer. We do not quote loan interest rates and we do not pay or accept residential referral fees; representation compensation is disclosed and agreed up front, in plain numbers.

Not right now. FinCEN’s Residential Real Estate Rule — which would have required reporting on certain non-financed (all-cash) purchases by legal entities or trusts — was scheduled to take effect March 1, 2026, but a federal court vacated it nationwide in March 2026, and FinCEN has appealed. As of this writing no Real Estate Report filing is required and there is no liability for not filing. This can change if the appeal reverses the decision, so if you are buying in the name of an LLC or a trust, confirm the current status with your closing agent or attorney at the time of your transaction.