Almost everyone who buys or sells a home works with a licensed agent, and almost nobody understands who that agent legally works for. This article explains the agency structures that determine whose interests an agent must protect, why the answer used to be counterintuitive enough that legislatures wrote disclosure statutes to fix it, and what dual agency and transaction brokerage actually mean. It traces where the commission comes from, how the cooperative compensation model worked for decades, and why the antitrust litigation that unwound it changed the conversation buyers and sellers now have. It covers the duties agents owe and the ones they do not, the disclosure obligations that fall on sellers and the ones that fall on agents, and the referral and kickback rules that quietly govern the settlement services around every transaction. It closes with how commission disputes actually get resolved, what a licensee risks in front of a board, and the practical advice that follows from all of it.