New York comptroller urges investors to block eXp’s move to Texas

The New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is again taking aim at eXp World Holdings, the parent company of eXp Realty, the largest brokerage in the country by transaction side count. 

On Wednesday, DiNapoli, who is a trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, an eXp World Holdings shareholder, called on investors to block the firm’s attempt to move its place of incorporation from Delaware to Texas. 

According to Securities and Exchange filings, the New York State Common Retirement Fund holds nearly 27,000 shares of eXp World Holdings. In total, eXp World Holdings has over 300 investors holding nearly 160 million shares in total.

The firm announced its desire to reincorporate in the Lone Star State in late February. Critics of the firm have claimed that eXp is trying to reincorporate to dodge allegations that the company and its executives enabled the drugging and rapes of women attending recruiting events. 

These allegations stem from lawsuits filed against the company in 2023, which accuse two former eXp agents and top recruiters Michael Bjorkman and David Golden of drugging and sexually assaulting women at eXp recruiting events. The plaintiffs have also sought to hold eXp and some of its executives, including CEO and founder Glenn Sanford, liable for the alleged negligent hiring of Bjorkman and Golden. 

eXp has reiterated to HousingWire that the firm “has zero tolerance for abuse, harassment or misconduct of any kind — including by the independent real estate agents who use our services,” and that it believes the claims against Sanford and the firm “are without merit.”

DiNapoli is urging investors to vote against the proposed move at the firm’s annual meeting scheduled for next Friday. 

In an interview with The New York Times, DiNapoli claimed that eXp has shown “an avoidance of corporate responsibility at the highest levels.” 

“They have not taken these allegations seriously, and they’re just packing up their tents and moving somewhere else hoping there will be less scrutiny and less accountability,” he told The Times. 

DiNapoli’s attempt to block the move comes a little over two years after he called for an independent investigation into the culture at eXp, after The Times published an expose on the sexual assault allegations faced by the two former star agents. 

In response to these allegations, two of the firm’s shareholders, the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System and Building Trades Pension Fund of Western Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit against eXp in October 2024, claiming that the firm’s leaders had breached their fiduciary duties to shareholders by ignoring red flags of alleged sexual misconduct by agents. 

In an emailed statement, an eXp spokesperson told HousingWire that the decision to reincorporate in Texas “was the result of more than a year of deliberation by our Board, including a special committee of independent directors.” 

“The decision reflects the Board’s considered judgment about the long-term operational and governance interests of the company and its shareholders. We do not anticipate the reincorporation will have any impact on existing litigation, as disclosed in our Proxy Statement filed with the SEC on March 9, 2026, which describes in detail the Special Committee process and the Board’s conclusions,” the spokesperson wrote. “Any characterization of the timing as ‘suspect’ misrepresents a lengthy, good-faith process and a misunderstanding of the reincorporation impacts on existing litigation.”