Connecticut Senate Bill 340 takes effect October 1, 2026. Brokers representing sellers of 1-4 unit residential properties must publicly market the listing or obtain the seller's signed opt-out following a state-standardized disclosure of the risks. What the law actually requires, where the documentation expectation goes beyond a single form, and where the Listing Strategy Decision Record fits.
Updated June 4, 2026
The short version. Connecticut now requires brokers to publicly market 1-4 unit residential listings concurrently with (or before) any private marketing. The only paths to non-public marketing are: (1) the seller signs the state-approved opt-out form after receiving the state's standardized disclosure of risks, or (2) the seller has a bona fide safety or privacy need. Violations carry fines up to $5,000 or license suspension. The signed opt-out documents that the seller chose to opt out. It does not document how they reached that choice. The LSDR is the deliberation record that pairs with the opt-out form.
On May 27, 2026, Governor Ned Lamont signed Senate Bill 340 into law. The statute requires that any real estate agent or broker representing a seller or landlord in the sale or lease of a residential property containing one to four units must, concurrently with or prior to any first instance of public marketing, make that listing available to the general public through a multiple listing service or other publicly accessible electronic listing service.
The legislative intent is stated explicitly: to "promote transparency and ensure open and nondiscriminatory access to property information for all prospective buyers or tenants." The law does not prohibit private listing networks. It prohibits marketing through a private network without simultaneous public marketing.
The effective date is October 1, 2026.
SB 340 sets up a binary at the point of listing: public marketing, or signed opt-out following standardized disclosure. The LSDR is the artifact that documents the substantive deliberation behind the seller's choice in that binary. The MLS-required form satisfies the procedural disclosure. The LSDR satisfies the evidentiary expectation that the disclosure was meaningful — that the seller understood the specific tradeoffs in their specific market and chose accordingly. State-form disclosure plus LSDR-documented deliberation are the two halves of a defensible private-listing file in Connecticut.
The trigger is broader than many brokers initially read it. Once any of the following occurs, public access must already exist or must occur concurrently:
The last item is the most consequential change. A private listing network shared between affiliated brokerages — the structure many "office exclusive" and "Compass Private Exclusive" arrangements rely on — counts as public marketing under SB 340 the moment it crosses brokerage boundaries. The trigger fires; the public marketing obligation attaches.
Public marketing must be available through an MLS, a consumer-facing real estate portal, or another unrestricted online listing platform. Platforms that require invitations, passwords, or membership access do not satisfy the law's public-access requirement.
The LSDR's comparison table is configured per-state to reflect what "public marketing" means under local law. For Connecticut deployments, the table presents SB 340's full trigger definition — including the broadened private-network rule that captures affiliate-brokerage networks. The opt-out form's standardized disclosure tells the seller the consequences in the abstract. The LSDR shows the seller concretely what they are forgoing — which marketing activities require concurrent public access, what timing applies, and what the consequences look like in the seller's regional market.
SB 340 provides one standard exception: the seller signs the state-approved Seller/Landlord Opt-Out of Real Estate Public Marketing form. The Connecticut Real Estate Commission is responsible for promulgating the form's standardized content. The statutory requirement is that the seller's direction to withhold the listing be informed written direction received after the seller has been given the state's standardized disclosure of the risks and tradeoffs of withholding the listing from public marketing.
The phrase "informed written direction" is the operative clause. It is the regulator's response to a practice pattern in which sellers sign whatever forms are placed in front of them at closing, sometimes without substantive understanding of what they are signing or its implications. Connecticut is now requiring that the disclosure precede the signature, and that the disclosure be standardized — meaning the broker cannot draft a softened version that minimizes the tradeoffs.
What the standardized disclosure form will say, in essence: marketing the property privately may reduce buyer competition, may reduce the final sale price, may extend time to contract, and may forfeit the price-discovery benefits of broad market exposure. The seller acknowledges receiving this information and elects to opt out anyway.
The phrase "informed written direction" is what the LSDR is purpose-built to document. The seller's structured walk-through of the public-vs-restricted comparison, their ranked priorities, the tensions surfaced in those priorities (and the seller's response to those tensions), and the resulting choice — all dual-signed, all timestamped, all contemporaneous — are the substantive evidence of informed direction.
Three questions a regulator or claimant will ask, looking back 18 months after the fact:
A seller's signature on the SB 340 opt-out form proves they signed. The LSDR proves they understood what they were signing — which is the substance the statute's "informed" language is asking for.
SB 340 provides a second, narrower exception: the listing agent may restrict public marketing if the seller has a "bona fide private, safety, or similar need" where public marketing would be "reasonably likely" to endanger the seller's health or safety. This carve-out is intended for the genuine cases — sellers fleeing domestic violence, sellers whose homes contain medical equipment or accessibility modifications that could be targeted, sellers with privacy concerns tied to professional roles where address disclosure is a security risk.
The exception is narrow. "Reasonably likely to endanger" is the standard, not "prefers privacy" or "doesn't want neighbors to know." Brokers invoking this exception will need to document the specific safety concern, the basis for the broker's reasonable belief, and the seller's affirmative invocation of the exception. A broker who routinely invokes the safety exception across many listings can expect to draw regulatory attention.
When the safety exception applies, the LSDR provides the structured place to document the basis. The seller's stated safety concern, the broker's reasonable belief that public marketing would endanger the seller, and the broker's review of any governing documents (court orders, protective orders, professional security assessments) can be captured in the deliberation record alongside the choice. A safety-exception listing with the broker's contemporaneous reasoning documented in the LSDR is a substantially stronger position than one with only the seller's verbal claim of need and the broker's check-the-box of the safety carve-out.
Violations of SB 340 carry fines of up to $5,000 per violation or suspension of the real estate professional's license. Enforcement falls to the Connecticut Real Estate Commission. The statute does not specify a private right of action for sellers or buyers, but the existence of a regulatory violation creates evidentiary support for civil claims that may follow — fiduciary breach, misrepresentation, or claims by buyers who later discover they were excluded from a marketing window they should have had access to.
A $5,000 fine per violation, calculated per listing or per marketing instance, can compound quickly across a brokerage's annual volume.
The LSDR was built to be the audit-defense artifact. A broker challenged 18 months after the fact — by the Real Estate Commission, by a competing broker's complaint, by a seller's heir, by a buyer asserting they would have offered more with public marketing — does not have time to reconstruct the conversation that produced the seller's opt-out signature. The contemporaneous LSDR, with its build fingerprint, dual signatures, structured deliberation, and stated priorities, is the documentation that converts a regulatory or civil challenge from "trust the broker's recollection" to "here is the record we made at the time." That shift is the difference between a defensible position and an indefensible one.
For a broker operating in Connecticut after October 1, 2026, a defensible private-listing file has three components, each addressing a different requirement:
The seller signs each. The state form goes to the regulatory file. The LSDR goes to the file and to the seller. The MLS addendum goes to SmartMLS. Eighteen months later, when documentation is needed, all three are produced together. The state form proves the procedural disclosure occurred. The LSDR proves the consent on the form was meaningfully informed. The MLS addendum proves the listing's handling complied with SmartMLS rules.
The fiduciary-breach plaintiff bar reads statutes like SB 340 as evidence of the standard of care. A broker who can produce all three documents has a far stronger position than a broker who has only the state-required form.
When does SB 340 take effect?
October 1, 2026. The bill was signed by Governor Lamont on May 27, 2026.
Does SB 340 apply to my listing if it's already signed under an exclusive agreement?
Listing agreements executed before October 1, 2026 are not retroactively governed. However, any public marketing activity that occurs on or after October 1, 2026 falls under the statute, regardless of when the listing agreement was signed. Brokers with pre-October listings still in their private phase should plan for either compliance or seller opt-out by the effective date.
Does the MLS being available to "the general public" require IDX syndication to Zillow, Realtor.com, and other portals?
The statute requires public access through "a multiple listing service or other publicly accessible electronic listing service." An MLS that publishes to IDX feeds and consumer portals plainly satisfies this. An MLS that holds the listing internally without consumer-facing distribution may not. Brokers using office-exclusive or restricted-IDX arrangements should review whether their actual public-access path satisfies the statute.
My brokerage's private listing network is shared with affiliated offices within the same franchise. Does that trigger SB 340?
Yes. The statute names "inclusion on a private network established among not less than two real estate brokerage agencies or franchisees" as a triggering activity. Sharing a listing across two or more brokerages or franchisees — whether intra-franchise or otherwise — is treated as marketing for purposes of the law. Public marketing must occur concurrently or before.
What if my seller wants privacy because they're going through a divorce or have other personal reasons?
Personal preference for privacy is generally addressed through the opt-out path, not the safety exception. The seller signs the state opt-out form acknowledging the risks of withholding the listing from public marketing, and the broker proceeds with restricted marketing. The safety exception is narrower — it requires a bona fide safety concern where public marketing would be reasonably likely to endanger the seller. A broker who invokes the safety exception for general privacy concerns risks regulatory scrutiny.
Is the SB 340 opt-out form different from SmartMLS's existing withhold-listing addendum?
Yes. The SmartMLS addendum addresses the MLS's internal handling of the listing. SB 340's opt-out form is a separate, state-mandated document with standardized disclosure language promulgated by the Connecticut Real Estate Commission. After October 1, 2026, brokers should expect to maintain both for any private-listing scenario.
Where does the Listing Strategy Decision Record fit?
The LSDR is a configured deliberation artifact that pairs with the SB 340 opt-out form. The form satisfies the statutory requirement; the LSDR documents how the seller arrived at the choice the form records. Brokers maintain both as part of a defensible file.
Generate a configured deliberation record for your brokerage. State-specific MLS data, your firm's name and stated practices, dual signatures, build-fingerprint timestamp. The artifact that pairs with the SB 340 opt-out form.
Start configuration → See pricing →Sources cited. Connecticut General Assembly, Senate Bill 340 (signed May 27, 2026; effective October 1, 2026). Office of Governor Ned Lamont, signing statement, May 27, 2026. Coverage: HousingWire (June 2, 2026), RealEstateNews.com (June 1, 2026), RISMedia (June 2, 2026). SmartMLS, Inc., Seller/Lessor Instruction to Withhold Listing From SmartMLS Addendum (revision 12/16/21). This page is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Brokers should consult counsel for guidance on compliance with SB 340 as applied to their specific practice.