Unison Home Equity Review: 15 CFPB Complaints, 4 Lawsuits (2026)

What Unison is, and what we could and could not read

Unison is a San Francisco company that pays a homeowner cash today in exchange for a share of the home's future change in value, with no monthly payment. Its home page, as the Internet Archive captured it on October 1, 2026, shows “20 years” of “Modernizing home equity finance,” more than 17,000 homeowners and $1.02 billion of “Home wealth unlocked” (the company's own claims). The legal entities, as the May 2026 class complaint lists them, are Unison Agreement Corporation, which signs the homeowner agreement, its parent Real Estate Equity Exchange, Inc. d/b/a Unison, and Unison Investment Management, LLC, which runs the funds. Our home equity investment contracts page covers the whole category and our Hometap review does the same exercise for its main rival.

What we read: the CFPB complaint database, SEC EDGAR (Forms D and ABS-15G), the Ninth Circuit memorandum, the consolidated class complaint filed in San Francisco, an AARP press release, and the Internet Archive capture of Unison's home page. What we could not read on November 11, 2026: Unison's FAQ, pricing and license pages (the site blocked our requests and the Internet Archive refused them), NMLS Consumer Access, and the court dockets. Where a term below comes from a third-party review it says so, and that is why this page does not score the cost example.

How the contract pays out

The best public description of a signed contract is a court's. In Homeowners v. Unison Agreement Corp. (Ninth Circuit No. 23-2835), a Washington couple signed on March 26, 2019 a “HomeOwner Agreement” under which Unison advanced $64,750 in exchange for an option to buy a 70.00% ownership interest in their $370,000 home for another $194,250, which is 3.0 times the advance; the couple also paid $2,525 in fees. If the home had been appraised at $518,000 when Unison exercised the option, the 70% interest would be worth $362,600, so Unison would net $168,350 on its $64,750. The option can be exercised at the 30-year expiration, a sale, the death of the last owner or an uncured default. After the third anniversary the homeowner can end the contract without selling only by paying a “Special Termination Price,” the greater of the advance plus accrued amounts or what Unison would get in a sale.

Unison's securitization reviewer prints the same economics as a formula. In Exhibit 99.1 of the Unison Trust 2026-2 filing (June 10, 2026): “Intrinsic Value = (Current AVM - Original Agreed Value) * Investor Percentage + OIP,” where OIP is the original investment price, and “Investor Percentage = Investment as Percent of Property * Pricing Ratio.” The rules behind the formula have moved:

Guideline changes printed in the SEC filing (Opus Capital Markets, June 8, 2026)

What a homeowner pays at the end, per the formula, is the advance plus a share of the gain. The risk adjustment matters even when nothing happens to the house. At the 4x pricing a third-party review reports (Finder, updated September 21, 2026: “typically four times that percentage of your home's future change in value”), the payoff on a flat home is the advance times 1 plus 4 times the risk adjustment (our arithmetic):

What a flat house costs under each version of the starting point (our arithmetic)

That contract's 70% on a 17.5% investment (64,750 over 370,000) is the same 4.0 multiple (our arithmetic). Under the post-June 2023 maximum of 60%, an investment of 15% of the home's value reaches the cap at the same multiple; Finder reports 15% of home value, $30,000 to $500,000, 3.9% fee, a 620 minimum credit score and a 5% reduction as Unison's current terms.

What $100,000 costs in year 3, 10 and 30

We take an advance of $100,000 on an $800,000 home (12.5% of value), pricing at 4x, so an Investor Percentage of 50%, a starting point of $760,000 (95% of the appraisal) and the 3.9% fee ($3,900), leaving $96,100 before the appraisal ($450 to $1,250), inspection ($650 to $1,050) and settlement costs ($700 to $1,750) that Finder lists. The payoff is $100,000 plus 50% of the home value above $760,000. The same table holds for any home size at 4x, because the result is the advance times 1 plus 4 times (value now over value then, minus 0.95).

Payoff on a $100,000 advance on an $800,000 home (our arithmetic)

Three limits on this table. It leaves out the deferred maintenance adjustment and the 20% “Maximum Appreciation Factor,” which the filing does not define, so a limit of that kind would lower the high-growth rows. The first five years carry a restriction period in which, per Finder, Unison does not share in a decline; at 0% or more growth that does not matter. And a 6% rise for 30 years is a scenario, not a forecast. We did not compare a HELOC because we have no sourced rate to attach to this homeowner; our Figure HELOC review has 2025 median HELOC rates from HMDA, and a reverse mortgage has its own federal rules.

The class complaint of May 22, 2026 puts the formula in two homeowners' dollars (allegations). For one plaintiff it says Unison told him in December 2024 that “to remove the mortgage on his home, he would need to pay Unison $184,537”: the home estimated at $465,000, times 70%, minus a “Purchase Price Balance” of $140,963, after an advance of $46,987 about seven years earlier.

CFPB complaints: 15, by year and issue

The CFPB complaint database lists the company as “Real Estate Equity Exchange, Inc. d/b/a Unison.” We pulled every complaint under that name on November 11, 2026 at 20:32 UTC through the public API: 15, the latest received May 27, 2026. A second search of the database for the word “unison” in the company field returned the same 15 (company-name matches only). The database does not publish narratives for these complaints, so we can say what was classified, not what happened.

CFPB complaints under Unison's listed name (pulled November 11, 2026)

Fifteen is a small number for a company that says it has 17,000 homeowners, and it does not mean the contracts are free of dispute: the plaintiffs in the cases below describe disputes that did not necessarily pass through the CFPB, and many homeowners with a contract in progress have not reached a payoff. Three of the 15 were filed in 2026 and are classified as HELOC sub-product (Payment process; Escrow, taxes, or insurance; Foreclosure), so some homeowners and the CFPB are classifying the agreement as a home equity loan. The company's public responses were “Company disputes the facts presented in the complaint” in 7 cases and “Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law” in 5.

Licensing and regulators

The class complaint quotes Unison's own license page as saying “Equity sharing agreements issued by Unison Agreement Corp. are not offered under mortgage lending licenses” and “Where offered, equity sharing agreements are not currently required to be licensed.” The same complaint says Unison operates in thirty states and Washington D.C. A third-party review lists a company NMLS number (2574289), which we could not check because NMLS Consumer Access blocked our request. We found no state regulator order against Unison in the documents we read, and we did not search every state; the CFPB's January 2025 report and the state laws are in our category page. Whether a state treats a home equity agreement as a loan is the question the lawsuits ask.

The court record

Cases involving Unison (as of November 11, 2026)

In that case the Ninth Circuit wrote that, “given the details of the particular structure of this overall arrangement, which includes a formal option as one component but effectively creates the substance of a shared-appreciation reverse mortgage,” the agreement “sufficiently gave rise to” a credit obligation under the Washington statute. On marketing, the panel concluded the Olsons “adequately alleged that the statement that ‘no interest’ was involved is deceptive,” and found no pleaded facts to support the claim that “no monthly payments” was deceptive. These are the court's reading of a complaint's allegations at the motion to dismiss stage, not a finding about every Unison contract, and Unison's position is that the product is an option and not a loan. A settlement is not an admission.

SEC filings: the fund and six securitizations

Unison's capital shows up in two kinds of SEC filing. Form D is the notice of a private fund offering. Unison Midgard Fund LP (CIK 1772345; general partner Odin Midgard Fund General Partner LLC; manager Unison Investment Management, LLC, 4 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco) filed its first Form D on April 9, 2019 with a $300,000,000 offering and a $5,000,000 minimum, and has amended it every year since.

Unison Midgard Fund LP, Form D and amendments (SEC EDGAR)

The latest amendment shows an offering amount of “Indefinite,” a $5,000,000 minimum and the exemptions Rule 506(b) and Investment Company Act sections 3(c)(5), 3(c)(6) and, since 2023, 3(c)(7). Total sold rose $46,000,000 between July 2025 and June 2026 (our arithmetic). A second vehicle, Unison Midgard REIT LLC (CIK 1798177), filed a Form D on December 30, 2019 reporting $125,000 sold to 125 investors with a $1,000 minimum. A Form D does not say how much of the money went into homeowner agreements.

Form ABS-15G carries the findings of third-party due diligence reviewers on securitized pools. Unison's two depositors, Unison Midgard Fund Depositor LLC (CIK 1990628) and Odin New Horizon Depositor LLC (CIK 2017322), filed six reports:

Six securitization diligence reports (SEC EDGAR)

The reviewers checked each file against Unison's own guidelines, not against consumer-protection law; the 2026-2 narrative lists the guideline items it tested (maximum investment size, maximum Investor Percentage, minimum FICO, residency, lien and title restrictions) and excludes others. The Investor Percentage column in the 2026-2 exhibit (our arithmetic) has 356 contracts, a minimum of 20.00%, a median of 68.37%, a mean of 62.07% and a maximum of 70.00%; 169 are at exactly 70.00% and 276 at 60.00% or more. The pool mixes contracts from different years, which is why it contains 70% shares that the 60% maximum of June 2023 would no longer allow.

What a reader can do with this

1. Ask for the dollar payoff at three home values and three dates in writing. The formula's inputs (Investor Percentage, Original Agreed Value, deferred maintenance adjustment) are in the contract; the payoff is a number Unison can calculate at signing.
2. Check the starting point. An Original Agreed Value at 95% of the appraisal costs 20% of the advance even if the home does not move (our arithmetic at 4x).
3. Read the exit clauses before the percentage. The Ninth Circuit memorandum describes a Special Termination Price after year 3 and a sale or death trigger; a contract that ends only by selling or paying is a different obligation from a HELOC.
4. Check your state and the case list. Unison says it is not licensed as a mortgage lender where it offers the agreement; four suits ask whether that is right. Check whether your state has a home equity contract law (see our category page).
5. Price the alternatives with the same home. A HELOC, a cash-out refinance or, from age 62, a reverse mortgage each have their own rules; compare total dollars at the same dates.

More on home equity contracts, read from the same kind of primary records: Splitero, Point, Unlock, Hometap, Truehold (sale-leaseback) and all five companies side by side.

FAQ

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. Sources: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, company “Real Estate Equity Exchange, Inc. d/b/a Unison” (pulled November 11, 2026); SEC EDGAR Forms D of Unison Midgard Fund LP (CIK 1772345) and Unison Midgard REIT LLC (CIK 1798177) and Forms ABS-15G of Unison Midgard Fund Depositor LLC (CIK 1990628, accessions 0001104659-23-109042, 0001104659-25-051389, 0001104659-25-111283, 0001104659-26-009168, 0001104659-26-072243) and Odin New Horizon Depositor LLC (CIK 2017322, 0001104659-24-062496); Homeowners v. Unison Agreement Corp., No. 23-2835 (9th Cir. Aug. 7, 2025); Consolidated Amended Class Action Complaint, Unison Agreement Contract Cases, JCCP No. 5432 (May 22, 2026); AARP press release of February 11, 2026; HousingWire reporting on the Colorado class action; Finder review (updated September 21, 2026); Unison home page (Internet Archive capture of October 1, 2026).