Mary Poppinsā€™ famous line, ā€œJust a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down,ā€ simply does not work for compliance with FinCENā€™s Residential Real Estate Rule (Final Rule). You can approach it with a good cup of coffee or tea by your side, along with your favorite tasty treat (did anyone say ā€œlemon poppyseed cookieā€?), but you canā€™t sugarcoat the truth of it.  Collecting up to 111 data points and transcribing them into a complex reporting form promulgated by FinCEN is no easy feat. However, efforts are underway to make compliance with the Final Rule more understandable, bearable, and easier to achieve. How so, you may ask?     

In our last blog about FinCENā€™s Final Rule, we briefly described a comprehensive two-day ALTA FinCEN Bootcamp training session held on June 2 and 3, 2025. Now weā€™re going to go a bit more in-depth with our coverage. 

Over the course of those two days, numerous speakers presented a variety of topics geared at providing background information, operationalizing advice, implementation requirements, and training materials for compliance with the Final Rule:

• Overview of Bank Secrecy Act (And Usefulness Of The Data Collected Under It)
  • Money Laundering and Real Estate
    • Real Life Examples Of Bad Actors Using Real Estate For Money Laundering; Resulting Real Estate Forfeitures And Treasury Auctions
  • 411 on FinCEN Residential Real Estate Rule (31 CFR 1031.320(b))
    • Who, What, When & How to Determine A Reportable Transaction
    • Expectations for Training, Reporting, and Record-keeping Costs
    • Penalties for Non-compliance (Civil & Criminal)
    • FAQs
    • Suggested Contractual Language for Residential Purchase Contracts
    • Suggested Schedule B-1 Commitment Language
    • Current Industry Lawsuits Against FinCEN
  • The Rule in Action (Hypothetical Scenarios)
  • How to Train Your Customers (Providing A Sample PowerPoint presentation For A ā€œLunch & Learnā€ That Can Be Branded And Used By ALTA Members)
  • The Collecting Is The Hardest Part (Data Points and Information Collection Forms)
  • Fun with Filing (How To Do It ā€“ Using The BSA-EFiling System)
    • Review Of ā€œWhoā€ Files per the Rule (i.e. The ā€œWaterfall Cascadeā€)
    • Designation Agreements For Someone Else to File
    • Registration For EFiling
    • System Requirements
    • Volume Of Covered Transactions
  • Training Your Staff
    • Selecting Subject Matter Expert (SME) Employees
    • Resources (FAQs, Published Rule)
    • Workflow Considerations
    • Record Retention And Storage
    • Staff Impact; Company Communications; Training for the Reporting Person

As you can see from the list above, there is a LOT to learn and do in order to prepare for the Final Ruleā€™s impending effective date of December 1, 2025. Discussions about the new and Information Collection Forms developed by ALTA were incorporated into the training. These are complex forms intended to help the buyerā€™s and sellerā€™s representatives provide all of the required data that will ultimately be included in the report to be filed through the BSA EFiling network. To access these forms via the hyperlinks provided, you must be logged into the ; these forms are available to ALTA members and to those who obtain a license to use ALTAā€™s policy forms. At the end of each form is a certification page for the sellerā€™s and buyerā€™s representatives to sign, certifying to the completeness and accuracy of the information provided. We anticipate that these forms will be widely used across the industry, so it is important to understand and be familiar with them.

The idea behind the training is that if the rule, the requirements and the process are understood by all key stakeholders ā€“ including the real estate sales agents as well their customers ā€“ then securing their cooperation for data acquisition will be much easier for the closing agent charged with reporting to FinCEN. The ALTA Bootcamp segment entitled ā€œHow to Train Your Customersā€ is tailored to educate everyone about the law and what they need to do to comply. For those of you who did not attend the Bootcamp, or who want a refresher, °µĶų³Ō¹Ļ plans to provide its own training to real estate sales agents toward the end of the summer and you are welcome to attend.

We have developed an °µĶų³Ō¹Ļ branded presentation, which you can also co-brand with your agencyā€™s name, for you to offer to customers and real estate professionals. In addition, we will be offering a deep dive into the Final Rule starting in late summer or early fall presented by the °µĶų³Ō¹Ļ underwriting and education teams. This training will help you identify reportable transactions, understand available exemptions to the rule and navigate potential pitfalls which could result in non-compliance and potential penalties. The goal of this presentation will be to train our agents to be experts on the Final Rule well in advance of its December 1, 2025, effective date.  In the interim, we encourage you to monitor industry and °µĶų³Ō¹Ļ publications on FinCEN, review FinCEN FAQs currently available, , practice a dry run into the BSA Efiling Network, https://boir.org/, and speak to your production software vendor about their plans for an integrated filing process. It is never too early to start the process regarding the Final Rule.  

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Hereā€™s a riddle for the title insurance and real estate industries: what does Dolly Partonā€™s song, ā€œHere You Come Againā€ have to do with FinCEN, its Geographic Targeting Orders (GTOs), and its Final Real Estate Report Rule (Final Rule)?  Answer: the last verse of the song repeats the lyrics, ā€œHere you come again . . . And here I goā€ several times, analogous to FinCENā€™s multiple, back-to-back, ever-expanding GTOā€™s issued since 2016, culminating in its permanent Final Rule issued on August 28, 2024, and effective on December 1, 2025, and our efforts to adapt and comply with all of its changes and requirements. 

We first published a in November of 2024 discussing FinCENā€™s Final Rule, its anticipated effective date of December 1, 2025, and the  things you should be thinking about to get an early start on operationalizing compliance with the numerous requirements.  Well, a lot has happened since thenā€”let’s bring you up to speed.

What has the industry been up to?

First of all, industry stakeholders have been diligently working to try and reduce the impact of the Final Rule on your title insurance business. Some players have even started pushing back hard against the Final Rule.

• On April 14, 2025, East Texas Title  filed suit in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas, to get an injunction against the permanent FinCen Real Estate Rule from going into effect on December 1, 2025. Some of the legal arguments:
  • Violation of the Constitutionā€™s separation of powers ā€“ title agents should not be ā€œforced to perform government surveillance on their clients by reporting private information from legitimate transactionsā€
  • Constitution only grants Congress the power to regulate commerce between states and that the federal government has no standing to require businesses to collect information on real estate cash transactions that take place entirely within Texas
  • Fourth Amendment protects against ā€œunreasonable searches and seizuresā€ of ā€œpersons, houses, papers, and effects,ā€ including business record – no right to require private business to violate the privacy of Americans.
    
• On May 20, 2025, a national underwriter  filed suit against Department of the Treasury and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, along with FinCEN and its director, Andrea Gacki, in the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville Division.  Some of the legal arguments set out in their complaint include:
  • The rule exceeds FinCENā€™s statutory authority
  • The rule is arbitrary and capricious
  • The rule violates the Fourth Amendment prohibition against warrantless searches
  • The rule violates the First Amendmentā€™s prohibition on compelled speech
  • The rule exceeds any authority Congress could have delegated under the Commerce Clause or its other Article I powers
    
• On May 15, 2025, ALTA made a formal appeal to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), asking for the ā€œAnti-Money Laundering Regulations for Residential Real Estatesā€ Final Rule to be rescinded ā€œif changes are not made to lessen the overly burdensome requirements on small title companies.ā€ (See )
  

Second of all, ALTA took the lead and created a working group to develop information collection forms to capture the information required for FinCEN reporting under the Final Rule.  After all, FinCENā€™s initial had 111 distinct fields so there will be a good bit of information to be collected! 

Third of all, ALTA has been working on creating helpful industry training webinars.  The first of these webinars was presented in March 2025 –  Learn How Proposed Real Estate Anti Money Laundering Rule Impacts You ā€“ and is available to watch as a free recording on Youtube at .  The second of these webinars was a comprehensive 2-day FinCEN Bootcamp training session held on June 2 and 3, 2025; while the Bootcamp was not a free event, we will be sharing valuable information from it in our future blogs and in agent training currently under development.  For now, you should know that the big takeaway from the Bootcamp is that it is NOT too early to begin operational preparations for the Final Rule.  It was pointed out that orders for cash transactions received in October and November could very well close in December and therefor be subject to the requirements of the Final Rule, so processes need to be in place to recognize and capture those early orders and ensure your agencyā€™s compliance.  In fact, settlement agents are encouraged to register for the FinCEN filing portal in advance of the Final Ruleā€™s effective date by going to and setting up a Supervisory User Account.  You can even prepare a practice report to understand the actual process and even provide your team with training. Just do not hit SUBMIT!

Lastly, on April 17, 2025, ALTA published based upon questions from their customers.  The questions involve numerous scenarios, and the answers do a good job of interpreting and applying the provisions of the Final Rule to the hypotheticals. 

What has FinCEN been up to since itā€™s publication of the ? 

On November 12, 2024, it released a to implement the Final Rule.  As with the posting of the Final Rule, the posting of the draft report form also has a preamble discussion, but if you want to skip over it and hop directly to the draft report section in the Appendix ā€“ Real Estate Report Summary of Data Fields, then click here .  

On June 5, 2025, FinCEN announced that the U.S. Department of the Treasury, on behalf of FinCEN, will submit the to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA); the public comment period on the information collection request is open until July 7, 2025.  By law, an agency cannot collect information without displaying a valid OMB number, so this is another required step as FinCEN moves forward with its plans for a final report form to implement its Final Rule.  To skip the preamble and go directly to the Appendix-Real Estate Report Summary of Data Fields, click here .  

What has °µĶų³Ō¹Ļ been up to?

Members of °µĶų³Ō¹Ļā€™s legal team have participated in developing the ALTA information collection forms and trainings discussed above.  We recognize that all stakeholders in this process will need education to understand the benefits of the Final Rule as well as its impact on residential real estate transactions after December 1, 2025. Stay tuned for practical °µĶų³Ō¹Ļ agent training webinars starting later this summer. We will also offer programs for your real estate professional partners as their support of your information collection efforts will be critical to a smooth closing under the Final Rule. We are already working to train our internal team members so you will have a team of experts at your disposal. Then we will help ā€œtrain the trainersā€ so you are equipped to respond and educate your business referring partners as well.  One thing is clear, moving forward the more players in your real estate transaction who are up to date with the benefits of the Final Rule and the protections it offers, the more rapidly acceptance and adaptation will follow. °µĶų³Ō¹Ļ will be your expert now and as the Final Rule implementation becomes part of your standard operation procedures.  

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