Former National Association of Realtors Chief Financial Officer John Pierpoint has sued the organization for unpaid retirement compensation totaling more than $541,000, according to a complaint filed on Tuesday.
Pierpoint alleged NAR has paid senior vice presidents one year of their base salary at retirement since 2005. To avoid booking the full expense when a senior vice president retired, NAR created a Compensation Reserve that let it steadily set aside funds throughout the executive’s tenure, which it would release at retirement. Pierpoint helped establish the reserve in 2005 at the direction of former NAR CEO Dale Stinton, court documents said.
Pierpoint retired from NAR on March 31, 2025 — a date he chose with the 2023 Sitzer | Burnett buyer-broker commission lawsuit in mind. The former CFO said he was key in executing the buyer-broker commission settlement payout, which totaled $418 million. The first settlement payment, totaling roughly $200 million, was issued in February 2025, with subsequent payments of $72 million per year until the full $418 million is paid.
Pierpoint said he notified NAR of his impending retirement in late 2024 and requested his retirement payout. However, six days before his last day with NAR, Pierpoint alleged that a Grant Thornton auditor named White — there is no first name listed in the court documents — emailed him and said that “NAR had been ‘unable to locate any policy or verify any consistent practice’ concerning the Compensation Reserve or ‘the payout to executives of a full year of salary upon retirement.'”
White also allegedly said that the Compensation Reserve “was not used to fund” the exit packages of eight other senior vice presidents who retired before Pierpoint, which are listed in the court documents as L.J., F.S., B.M., D.H., J.G., J.B., D.G. and B.G. Real Estate News said L.J., D.G. and B.G. are likely former general counsel Laurie Janik, former SVP of talent development and resources Donna Gland, and former senior vice president and CEO Bob Goldberg.
As a result, Grant Thornton said it was “unable to approve the payout of a full year’s compensation without any concrete proof that such act is mandated by an employment agreement, policy or plan.”
Pierpoint claimed NAR had the funds to pay his retirement benefit and provided a ledger outlining what the Association allegedly reserved from December 2014 to December 2024. He also said the trial balances NAR provided to outside auditors, including Grant Thornton, included evidence of the Compensation Reserve’s existence and purpose.
“NAR carried its obligation to Pierpoint at approximately 97.6 cents on the dollar three months before it refused to pay him anything,” the complaint read. “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.”
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Pierpoint’s counsel accused NAR of shirking its obligation to pay the former CFO due to its financial woes after the settlement. In December 2025, former NAR president Kevin Sears said the buyer-broker commission settlement saved the Association’s finances — the other option was to file an appeal and declare bankruptcy.
“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, P.C., who represents Pierpoint. “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,” he added.
Pierpoint’s counsel is requesting that NAR pay the $541,059 retirement payout, statutory damages of 5 percent of the unpaid amount for each month it remains unpaid, attorneys’ fees and costs, and prejudgment and post-judgment interest. They also seek a jury trial.
NAR denied Pierpoint’s claims, saying that the former CFO has “[mischaracterized] a varied set of individual arrangements with departing executives as a uniform and guaranteed retirement benefit.”
“Mr. Pierpoint was not entitled to the payment he now seeks, and NAR’s decision was unrelated to its antitrust settlement or its financial condition,” an NAR spokesperson told Inman in an emailed statement. “NAR is committed to appropriate financial controls and responsible stewardship of its members’ dues dollars. NAR pays compensation and benefits that are actually owed, not just because a former executive requests payment. No such obligation exists here, and we intend to vigorously defend against these claims through the appropriate legal process.”
