As such, they offered to act solely as agents of the buyers to ensure their undivided loyalty. Agency law does not require that the agent be paid by the principal. Many multiple listing services, however, would not grant membership or multiple list access to buyers' brokers. Many listing brokers refused to share commissions with buyers' brokers because they had not performed as sellers' subagents. Brokers succeeded in lobbying forty-one states to pass statutes that allow a variety of relationships.
Brokers can still enter into a traditional agency relationship with a buyer or seller.
A selling broker can still be a subagent of the seller, and it is still possible to be a buyers' agent. Now, however, in these states it is also possible to be a dual agent or a nonagent. Typically under these new statutes, to enter into these relationships, brokers must follow prescribed disclosure procedures. Under this approach, the broker simultaneously owes a fiduciary duty to the buyer and seller, but the duty to each is limited by the duty to the other. In contrast, the nonagent represents neither party.