On August 29, 2024, FinCEN (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) finalized a new rule that expands anti-money laundering requirements to cover certain non-financed residential real estate transactions involving legal entities and trusts.
Starting December 1, 2025, title & escrow companies will be required to report qualifying transactions through a new “Real Estate Report.” While the final version of that form hasn’t been published yet, the rule—and your responsibilities under it—are clear and confirmed.
Here’s what the rule entails and how your business can prepare ahead of the compliance deadline.
What’s Changing Under the Final Rule
ALTA states that the final rule will mandate “select real estate professionals to submit reports and keep records about certain high-risk, non-financed transfers of residential real property to specified legal entities and trusts.”
Here’s a breakdown of what these terms mean in practice:
“Select real estate professionals”
FinCEN expects that the reporting responsibility will usually fall to title agents, escrow agents, settlement agents, or attorneys. If more than one party is involved, FinCEN outlines a “reporting cascade” to determine the ultimate responsible party based on who performs certain functions in the transaction.
“Residential real property”
The rule applies to most common types of residential property, including:
- Single-family homes, townhomes, condos, and co-ops (even in large buildings)
- Entire apartment buildings designed for 1–4 families
- Mixed-use properties (e.g., a storefront with residential units above)
- Vacant land—if the buyer intends to build a home on it
“Non-financed transfer”
Generally speaking, this is a cash purchase, meaning the buyer isn’t getting a mortgage or institutional loan. More precisely, a transfer is considered non-financed if the buyer receives no loan that is both:
- Secured by the property, and
- Issued by a financial institution that follows anti-money laundering (AML) rules and files Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)
Under these conditions, if the buyer is using a private lender or non-bank financing, the deal might still count as non-financed under FinCEN’s rule.
“Transferee entity and transfer trust”
The buyer is not an individual but rather a corporation, LLC, partnership, or trust. Both domestic and foreign entities and trusts are covered by the reporting requirement. Transactions involving layered ownership, shell entities, or trusts are likely to receive added scrutiny under the new rule due to their historical use in obscuring ownership.
If a transaction falls under these criteria, the reporting person must file a Real Estate Report with FinCEN. The report is due by the last day of the month following the closing month or within 30 calendar days of the closing date, whichever comes first.
How This Differs from the GTOs
If this sounds familiar, it’s because the rule echoes the temporary Geographic Targeting Orders (GTOs) previously issued by FinCEN. But there are a few key differences:
- The new rule applies nationwide, not just to specific cities.
- It’s permanent, not time-limited like the GTOs.
- It mandates formal, electronic reporting via the BSA E-Filing System, the same portal currently used for other Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) reports.
FinCEN estimates the rule will require about 800-850k reports to be filed annually.
Best Practices While You Wait
ALTA is actively developing a standardized data collection form (Real Estate Report form) that title & escrow companies can use to capture the required information.
Even though the Real Estate Report form hasn’t been released yet, you can start preparing in several meaningful ways:
- Familiarize yourself with the ALTA buyer & seller information collection forms. The American Land Title Association (ALTA) has released buyer and seller information collection forms to help companies begin gathering the necessary data for FinCEN reporting.
- These forms are meant to be completed by the consumer.
- Title & escrow companies will then use the information to complete the FinCEN Real Estate Report.
- Review the forms now to ensure your current workflows either support or can be adapted to collect all required data.
- Start preparing for FinCEN electronic reporting via the BSA E-Filing System.
- Each reporting organization will need a login.gov account to access the system.
- During setup, you’ll designate a Supervisory User, who will manage access and oversee filings across your organization.
- Start “dry runs” this fall to prepare your team. Once FinCEN releases the Real Estate Report form, we recommend starting internal dry runs of the process using ALTA’s buyer/seller forms. Here’s how:
- Have the reporting person (likely your title agent) complete a Real Estate Report based on a real, recent transaction, using either mock data or consumer-provided information.
- Don’t submit the form yet. This is purely a practice run.
- Use the experience to identify gaps in your process and train your team accordingly.
This dry run will help teams become fluent with the new reporting motion before the December deadline.
What to Expect from Qualia
We’re actively developing features in Qualia that will support compliance with the new FinCEN rule. In Qualia Core, the solution will enable users to track FinCEN-eligible transactions across their pipeline and collect and manage the necessary data for reporting. Resware customers will be able to use the platform’s powerful existing features, including workflow configuration, database queries, and reporting to meet these new requirements.
Our solutions will be completed before the reporting changes go into effect in December 2025.
Click below to talk to a Qualia Specialist about automation built directly into Qualia.
