TCPA Penalties: What One Wrong Text Actually Costs
Leonardo Kalinowski
CTO
What does a TCPA violation actually cost?
A private lawsuit under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act can recover $500 per violation, and up to $1,500 per violation if a court finds the conduct willful or knowing (47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(3), (c)(5)). There's no cap on total exposure, because every individual call or text is its own separate violation. It isn't one violation per campaign, and it isn't one violation per contact. A single number texted five times without consent is five violations, not one.
That distinction is the whole reason this number gets big fast, and it's the part most agents miss until it's their name on a demand letter.
What is a TCPA violation, exactly?
A TCPA violation is a call or text sent using an automatic telephone dialing system or a prerecorded voice to a number without the required consent, or a call made to a number on the National Do Not Call Registry outside one of its narrow exemptions. The established business relationship, express written consent, and personal relationship exemptions that let you legally call a registered number apply the same way to texts. When none of them apply, every message you send to that number is a separate, chargeable violation.
Why does the exposure add up so fast?
Texting the same non-consenting number once a week for a year is roughly 52 separate violations from a single relationship gone wrong, not one violation for the year. At $500 each, that's $26,000 in statutory exposure before a court even considers whether the conduct was willful. Double the frequency and the number doubles. This isn't a projection or an industry estimate. It's the per-violation rule in the statute, multiplied by however many messages actually went out.
Most agents don't set out to text 52 times. A stalled drip campaign, an old lead list nobody scrubbed, or an assistant working off a spreadsheet with no consent flag can produce that count without anyone deciding to send that many messages. The exposure isn't about intent. It's about volume against a list that was never checked.
Has a real estate company actually been sued over this?
Yes, and not once. Three real settlements from the past two years show this isn't a hypothetical risk invented to sell compliance software.
Realogy Holdings / Coldwell Banker reached a $20 million settlement over allegations of Do Not Call Registry calls and prerecorded messages by Coldwell Banker-affiliated agents between 2015 and 2020, with payments distributed in June 2026 (ClassAction.org). Keller Williams Realty Landmark settled for $400,000 over telemarketing texts sent to 1,019 unique DNC-registered numbers, in Nicotra v. Bayside NY Homes LLC d/b/a Keller Williams Realty Landmark, E.D.N.Y. Case No. 1:24-cv-04459 (ClassAction.org). Fathom Realty agreed to a settlement of roughly $2.85 million over unsolicited texts sent to numbers on the registry, with claimants eligible for about $48 per text and a claim deadline of January 7, 2026 (ClassAction.org, Top Class Actions).
| Case | Settlement | Alleged conduct | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Realogy Holdings / Coldwell Banker | $20,000,000 | DNC registry calls and prerecorded messages, 2015-2020 | Payments distributed June 2026 |
| Keller Williams Realty Landmark | $400,000 | Telemarketing texts to 1,019 registered numbers | Settled, E.D.N.Y. |
| Fathom Realty | ~$2,850,000 | Unsolicited texts to DNC-registered numbers | Claims deadline Jan 7, 2026 |
None of these are small independent shops. They're brand names in this exact industry, and every one of them was sued over the same basic pattern: messages sent to numbers that were already on the registry, with no exemption covering them.
Three real brokerages, three real settlements, in the same industry this blog serves. This isn't a scare tactic pulled from a compliance vendor's sales deck. It's a documented pattern with names attached, and the agents who never think about it are usually one stalled campaign away from being the next name.
Can an individual agent be personally sued, or just the brokerage?
Both are possible, and which one happens depends on facts specific to who sent the message and the relationship between the agent and the brokerage. That's a real legal question about vicarious liability, not something a blog post can settle for your situation. What's true regardless of how that question resolves: the safest position is never needing to find out, because the message that triggers a claim was never sent without consent in the first place.
What's the fastest way to lower this exposure?
- Scrub any list you didn't build yourself against the DNC registry before you text or call it. A purchased list, a scraped list, and an old lead list all need this check too.
- Get real consent before you start texting, not after a complaint. A signed intake form with a clear consent line and the phone number covers you; a saved number from a past transaction does not.
- Treat every new sphere contact as needing an opt-in, not an opt-out. Default to asking, not assuming.
- Watch your automated sequences. A drip campaign nobody's monitoring is exactly how a single relationship turns into 52 violations over a year.
None of this is legal advice about your specific exposure. It's the practical version of a simple rule: the cost problem and the compliance problem are the same problem, solved the same way, by not texting numbers you don't have a real reason to text.
The agents who get burned by this aren't usually the ones who set out to break the rule. They're the ones who never stopped to ask whether they had permission before a number went on a texting list. That one pause, before you add someone, is cheaper than every settlement on this page combined.
Getting consent right at the start is a five-second habit. Cleaning up after a violation is a legal bill. For the exemptions that let you legally reach the numbers already in your database, see when you can legally call a number on the Do Not Call Registry.
For the complete compliance framework, see the complete DNC and TCPA compliance guide.
For the exemption flowchart, consent language, and a self-audit in one place, download the free DNC-TCPA Survival Guide.
This article is educational information, not legal advice. Telemarketing law changes, states add their own requirements, and how the rules apply to your situation depends on your specific facts. Consult a licensed attorney before making compliance decisions. See our legal disclaimer. Legal and case sources in this article were verified against primary and law-firm/class-action-tracking sources in August 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is it $500 or $1,500 per text under the TCPA?
Both figures are real, for different situations. $500 per violation is the baseline statutory damage a court can award. A court can raise that to $1,500 per violation if it finds the conduct willful or knowing. Either way, the amount is per violation, not per campaign or per contact.
Do TCPA penalties apply per text message or per person contacted?
Per message. Texting the same non-consenting number five times creates five separate violations, each carrying its own statutory damages, not one violation for contacting that person.
Has a real estate company actually been sued under the TCPA?
Yes. Realogy Holdings/Coldwell Banker ($20 million), Keller Williams Realty Landmark ($400,000), and Fathom Realty (roughly $2.85 million) have all settled TCPA claims tied to Do Not Call Registry calls or texts in the past two years.
What's the difference between the private lawsuit penalty and the FTC's penalty?
They're different tracks. The $500-$1,500 per-violation figure is what an individual plaintiff or a class can recover in a private lawsuit. Separately, the FTC can pursue its own civil enforcement action with a maximum penalty of $53,088 per violation as of 2026, an inflation-adjusted figure set in a January 2025 Federal Register notice and unchanged for 2026 (Federal Register). The FTC's enforcement track targets large-scale and repeat offenders far more often than a solo agent, but the private-suit numbers apply to anyone.
Can a real estate agent be personally sued, or just their brokerage?
Either is possible, depending on who sent the message and the specific facts of the agent's relationship with the brokerage. That's a question for a licensed attorney, not something this article can resolve for your situation.