Who Represented Florida Home Buyers and Sellers in the Development of the New Forms?

On 9/30/2026 12:18 PM, Werner Heidbuechel wrote:

Juana,
Margy,

I am requesting information regarding the process Florida Realtors used to create, revise, and approve its real estate forms following the real estate commission class-action litigation and resulting industry changes.

My question is straightforward:

Who specifically represented the interests of Florida home buyers and sellers during the development and review of these forms?

Please provide the names and email addresses of the individuals who participated in the process specifically from the perspective of protecting and representing Florida consumers—not the interests of real estate brokers, brokerages, Realtors®, Realtor associations, attorneys representing the real estate industry, or other industry participants.

This question is particularly important to me because I personally submitted suggestions and raised concerns that I believed would provide greater protection, transparency, and clarity for Florida home buyers and sellers. Those suggestions were not incorporated, and I was not provided with a substantive explanation as to why they were rejected or disregarded.

If Florida Realtors considered those suggestions and determined that they should not be incorporated, I would appreciate an explanation of who reviewed them, what criteria were used to evaluate them, and why they were not adopted.

In particular, I would like to know:

1. Who reviewed the new and revised forms specifically on behalf of Florida home buyers and sellers?

2. Were any independent consumer advocates, consumer-protection organizations, buyer or seller representatives, academics, economists, or other individuals without a financial interest in real estate brokerage invited to participate?

3. If so, please provide their names, organizations or affiliations, and email addresses.

4. Were actual Florida home buyers or sellers included in any committee, working group, focus group, public-comment process, or other review of the forms? If so, please identify how consumers were selected and how their input was incorporated.

5. Which Florida Realtors committees, work groups, attorneys, or other individuals were responsible for drafting, reviewing, recommending, and ultimately approving the revised forms?

6. Please identify any individual involved in that process whose specific responsibility was to examine whether the forms were fair, understandable, and beneficial to consumers rather than to the real estate industry.

7. What process does Florida Realtors use when a Realtor, broker, consumer, or other individual submits a proposed change intended to provide additional consumer protection? Who decides whether that recommendation is accepted or rejected?

This distinction is important. A Realtor or broker can certainly care about consumers, but that is different from having an independent consumer representative at the table whose responsibility is to advocate exclusively for buyers and sellers.

Florida buyers and sellers sign these agreements and may pay substantial brokerage compensation under them. They should therefore be able to know who represented their interests when the agreements were designed and approved.

I also believe that when specific consumer-protection concerns are presented to the organizations responsible for developing these forms, those concerns deserve more than silence. If a proposed consumer protection is rejected, explaining why it was rejected and who made that determination would provide important transparency to both real estate professionals and the public.

If no independent consumer representatives participated in the development or review of these forms, a simple confirmation of that fact would answer that portion of my request.

Likewise, if there was no individual or organization specifically charged with representing the interests of Florida home buyers and sellers during the process, please confirm that as well.

I would appreciate a substantive response identifying the individuals involved rather than a general explanation that Florida Realtors’ committees, attorneys, or members reviewed the forms.

Thank you. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Werner Heidbuechel
Broker/Owner
Nobs Realty LLC