On March 4, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss a case alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), allowing claims that defendants implicitly offered bundled real estate services when seeking to purchase the plaintiff’s home to proceed while dismissing other theories. The plaintiff alleged she received unsolicited text messages offering a “quick” and “hassle-free” home purchase despite her listing on the National Do Not Call Registry and no prior relationship with the senders. According to the complaint, whenever the defendants purchased a home, they handled all aspects of the transaction, including appraisal, title and escrow services, and completion of paperwork, and charged a “substantial” fee deducted from the purchase price, from which they allegedly derived profit.

The court found these allegations plausibly showed the defendants acted with the purpose of encouraging the purchase of services, meeting the TCPA’s definition of telephone solicitation. The court held that under the TCPA, an explicit mention of services in a message is not required when context plausibly suggests an intent to sell them. It cited prior decisions supporting the view that offers to buy homes may constitute solicitations when accompanied by implicit offers of related services. The judge also rejected the defendants’ reliance on out-of-circuit district court cases, noting that several courts in the present district have reached different conclusions. However, claims alleging that defendants sought to sell other offerings, such as loan services, investment opportunities, or home construction, were dismissed because the content of the messages did not support those theories.