Don't like your Zestimate? Tough luck!

[Mark Rogers]

A seller in Illinios listed his home for $1.5 million and thought that the Zestimate of $1.3 million for his house was too low and scared away potential buyers. He asked Zillow to increase its Zestimate or remove it from Zillow’s database. Zillow refused, so the seller filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Zillow was, among other things, violating the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act and Consumer Fraud statute. The lower court dismissed the suit and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed on grounds that those statues deal with false or misleading statements of fact, “while Zestimates are opinions, which canonically are not actionable.” Patel v. Zillow, Inc., No. 18-2130, 2019 WL 491797 (7th Cir. Feb. 8, 2019).