Ex-NAR CFO accuses association of withholding retirement benefit 

The National Association of Realtors' longtime chief financial officer has filed a lawsuit against the trade group, alleging that NAR cheated him after it found itself in financial straits following its settlement in the landmark commissions lawsuits.

What the ex-CFO alleges

According to the Nov. 10 complaint, NAR refused to pay John Pierpoint, who worked at NAR for 38 years before retiring in March 2025, a retirement benefit it had paid its retiring senior vice presidents since 2005: a full year of base salary ($541,059 for Pierpoint).

"John Pierpoint helped guide NAR through an extraordinarily challenging period in its history, including the financial consequences of the antitrust litigation," said David Fish, an attorney with Workplace Law Partners, which represents Pierpoint, in a statement. 

"After nearly four decades of service, he expected the organization to honor the same retirement compensation practice it had followed for other senior executives. We believe the evidence will establish that the financial pressures following the antitrust verdict did not relieve NAR of its obligation to pay compensation earned by its employees."

According to NAR's 2024 990 form, Pierpoint received $872,572 in total compensation from NAR that year, including base compensation, bonuses, benefits and other compensation.  

Real Estate News has reached out to NAR for comment and will update this story if and when a response is received.

A 'Compensation Reserve' at NAR for 2 decades

The complaint details how, when former NAR CFO Dale Stinton became NAR CEO in 2005, Stinton had Pierpoint, who had been promoted to CFO, institute the benefit and establish an accounting reserve so that the benefit would accrue over each executive's tenure.

"The Compensation Reserve was included in the accrued liabilities reported in NAR's audited financial statements, and on information and belief in the financial information NAR presented to its Board of Directors, its Finance Committee, its lenders, and the Internal Revenue Service, for approximately twenty years," the complaint says.

NAR calculated and recorded Pierpoint's retirement benefit as a liability in year-end schedules annually from at least 2014 through 2024, including after Pierpoint announced his retirement, according to the complaint.

"At no time before Pierpoint retired did NAR inform him, or to his knowledge any other Senior Vice President, that the Retirement Benefit had been discontinued, modified, or made subject to any condition not previously applied," the complaint alleges.

'NAR's finances collapsed'

But then a jury in the Sitzer-Burnett commission lawsuit returned a $1.8 billion verdict against NAR, exposing the trade group to more than $5 billion in trebled damages, and NAR settled for $418 million paid out over four years. "NAR's finances collapsed," the complaint alleges, and the association looked for ways to save money.

Pierpoint, believing he would receive the benefit, assembled the funds for NAR's first settlement payment of $200 million in February 2025 and timed his retirement for after the payment was made and after his 65th birthday, the complaint adds.

"However, six days before he left, NAR informed him that it could not 'verify any consistent practice' of paying retiring executives a year of salary and would not pay him," according to the complaint.

"The practice NAR now claims it cannot verify is documented in NAR's own ledger, its own year-end schedules, its own payroll records, and its own audit files, and was paid to every one of Pierpoint's predecessors who retired. NAR did not stop believing in its obligation; it stopped wanting to pay it."

Other retiring SVPs allegedly got the benefit — but no more will

Pierpoint's attorneys noted that about 10 senior vice presidents who retired voluntarily over the span of about 20 years had received the benefit.

The complaint identifies these executives only by their initials: L.J. , F.S., B.M., D.H., J.G.,  J.B., D.G., and B.G. The executive L.J. is further identified as "NAR's former General Counsel" who retired in 2013 and is almost certainly Laurie Janik. The last two are likely Donna Gland, NAR's former SVP of talent development and resources, and Bob Goldberg, who was an SVP before becoming CEO in 2017. Both Gland and Goldberg left NAR after calls for their resignation.

However, the complaint suggests Pierpoint is not the only SVP that will no longer be receiving this alleged benefit. After the trade group refused to pay Pierpoint, NAR allegedly "directed its finance staff to write the Compensation Reserve off its books, eliminating a liability of several million dollars from its balance sheet during the period in which it was funding its antitrust settlement obligations."

When asked for the names behind the initials and whether the retirement benefit is paid out in a lump sum or over installments, Fish declined to comment.

Claims and a jury demand

The lawsuit, which was filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago, where NAR is based, alleges violation of the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act, among other claims, and asks for "unpaid final compensation of $541,059," statutory damages of 5% of the unpaid amount for each month it remains unpaid, attorneys' fees and costs, and prejudgment and post-judgment interest.

The complaint further calls for a trial by jury.