PHOTO: CHRISTEL YARDLEY/FAIRFAX NZ Jeremy O’Rourke is director of Lodge Real Estate, which has been fighting the Commerce Commission’s price-fixing allegations.
Hamilton real estate agencies that have been involved in a long battle against price-fixing allegations have lost their appeal to the Supreme Court.
Lodge Real Estate and Monarch Real Estate have been told to pay $35,000 in costs to the Commerce Commission.
The saga began in 2013, when Trade Me put up its online property listing prices.
A number of Hamilton real estate agencies met to discuss their responses. Most were paying for the cost of listings themselves.
The Commerce Commission said that the agencies at the meetings agreed they would withdraw their listings from Trade Me and put them on Realestate.co.nz instead. Vendors who wanted Trade Me listings had to pay for them themselves.
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