Editor’s Note: This story was updated Oct. 3 to reflect the recent change to the effective date for the “Anti-Money Laundering Regulations for Residential Real Estate Transfers” real estate reporting rule. The rule, imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, is now slated to take effect March 1, 2026.
With a federal real estate transaction reporting rule set to begin March 1, 2026, it is essential for title insurance and settlement services companies to become familiar with the large amount of additional information they will need to gather, according to the leader of an artificial intelligence (AI) and automation solutions company.
The “Anti-Money Laundering Regulations for Residential Real Estate Transfers” real estate reporting rule imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) will require title and settlement firms to report a much larger amount of information pertaining to a real estate transaction than they have before.
While FinCEN postponed the effective date of the rule from Dec. 1, title and settlement industry members should take steps now to ensure they are prepared to comply with the requirements on day one, said Charles Wismer, CEO with Advalis, which is the parent company of both FincenFetch and fincenrealestatereport.com.
Under the new rule, the Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) form that has been used by industry professionals for the past several years will be replaced by the Real Estate Report (RER) form, Wismer explained.
“The (new) rule covers all previous GTO transactions and adds more transactions that need to be reported,” Wismer said.
Under this new rule, settlement agents, attorneys or other reporting companies must file reports with FinCEN about residential real estate transactions that meet all of the following criteria:
• The deed transfer is for residential real estate, including vacant land intended for the construction of a one-to-four family structure;
• The purchase is made with all cash or without institutional lender financing;
• At least one of the buyers/transferees is a legal entity, LLC, corporation, partnership, trust, trustee or other non-natural person.
“Under (the new rule), reporting is needed for almost all residential transactions that are non-financed and purchased by entities or trusts,” Wismer told The Title Report. “With
GTO, it was further limited to higher cost transactions, only to entities (not trusts), and only in certain geographic areas.”
The GTO targeted cash and non-financed transactions, where transactions met certain monetary thresholds in metropolitan areas in places such as California, New York and Florida.
“(With the new rule) they’re essentially widening the data capture to take away the geographic restriction, go all U.S., go all price points with it, and it’s going to create roughly anywhere from eight to 14 times … the volume of reporting that the GTOs used to create,” Wismer said.
Wismer added that the new rule will require industry professionals to collect and file information on transactions involving trusts, including data points such as the date the trust instrument was executed and details regarding all trustees.
For entities, general entity information is required in addition to details about the entity’s owners and decision makers. Industry professionals will also now need to obtain information from the seller. In addition, there are more report types, a legal description of the property must be included, each payment must be recorded and attributed to specific parties, as well as information about hard money loans.
“It’s a lot of new fields. … Not all of them will be required, but roughly 40 to 70 percent are required depending on which path you’re coming down,” Wismer explained.
With the shift from GTO to RER, the party responsible for filing the report will also change in most situations.
“The underwriter was on the hook for the GTO filings, but with RER, it’s the company that prepares the settlement statement in most cases,” Wismer explained.
Wismer showed the reporting cascade, which ranks the different professionals who will be responsible for filing the RER report under the new rule. The first person who must report is the individual or business listed as the closing or settlement agent on the official closing or settlement statement. If there is not a listing or settlement agent involved, the professional who prepared the closing or settlement document must do the report. If there is not a professional who prepared the settlement, then it’s the person who filed the deed. If none of those three aforementioned scenarios exist, the underwriter of the owner’s title insurance policy for the transferee is responsible for filing the report.
When should title agents be ready?
Wismer said he thought title agents should have a solid process in place 45 days before the rule takes effect.
“You’re going to have some closings that are going to go back and forth,” Wismer said. “They’re going to take that long, and then you want to be able to collect that information, ideally, substantially ahead of closing.”
Title agencies and firms will have until the end of the month after the month of the property closing to submit a report containing all of the information required by the
FinCEN rule.
Looking ahead, Wismer encouraged companies to be diligent about collecting information for transactions that they don’t anticipate finalizing until the start date of the rule or later.
“If you have anything that potentially could close in the... last five days, running up to it, or anything like that, you want to have that early on so you can file later with FinCEN by the timeline,” Wismer said.
How to protect against submission of false information
With the large increase in the amount of information being collected, Wismer noted there are tactics that companies can employ to protect themselves if someone provides them with false information related to a transaction.
“There’s something called a reasonable reliance here, and it’s nice for the title companies because it’s protective,” Wismer said. “FinCEN is recognizing that you all can only give us the information that they give you. If you can reasonably rely on the information that they gave you, then it’s your safe harbor. … The best way to certify that reasonable reliance is have them actually sign a document or digitally certify a form depending on your process.”
Wismer explained that companies can have the information submitters sign either a paper document or eSign a digital record certifying the accuracy of the data they are providing.
“You want them to certify everything’s accurate, that they understand that you’re going to file based on the information (they provided), they take responsibility for the accuracy,” Wismer said. “You told them the requirements. You’ve done everything you can because you can’t stop somebody from lying at the end of the day.”
If companies have each party submitting information sign this type of form, the party who certified that their information was correct will be held responsible if it’s later determined that they provided false data, according to Wismer.
For companies that handle a small number of closings a month, Wismer’s firm, fincenrealestatereport.com, provides a form that companies can have information submitters sign to certify that they are providing accurate information. For companies that handle a large amount of closings in a month, the firm provides a filing service and software that firms can use for the information collection, certification and filing process.
When should automation be
implemented?
Wismer said it’s important for title and settlement firms to examine the number of closings they are handling when evaluating whether they should implement some forms of automation in connection with filling out and filing reports.
“Once you’re starting to cross into that five to 10 range on a monthly basis, automation starts to make a lot of sense,” Wismer said.
Wismer’s firm offers tools to help companies comply with the requirements and with the collection of information.
“Some people choose our software just for the simple purpose of not having to be in the situation where they have to ask for (the transaction information),” Wismer said.
Once a report is finished, Wismer said industry professionals will be able to “quickly extract the FinCEN PDF. Once all parties submit, you click the button, it produces a finalized and signed PDF or batch filing and files with FinCEN.”
By using this software, Wismer noted companies won’t need to spend extra time retyping information and adding pages.
“The time commitment for them is they drop a document in, add the information, and then they invite everybody,” Wismer said. “(The software system) handles the reminders, the data collection. It gives them full awareness on any number of filings. So maybe a couple minutes to fill it out, share the links out. Once it’s collected everything, a couple minutes to … see it in the done pile, and then drop it in the FinCEN interface, mark it as filed, no retyping (needed). … It’s a very condensed process.”
How to protect against
submission of false information
With the large increase in the amount of information being collected, Wismer noted there are tactics that companies can employ to protect themselves if someone provides them with false information related to a transaction.
“There’s something called a reasonable reliance here, and it’s nice for the title companies because it’s protective,” Wismer said. “FinCEN is recognizing that you all can only give us the information that they give you. If you can reasonably rely on the information that they gave you, then it’s your safe harbor. … The best way to certify that reasonable reliance is have them actually sign a document or digitally certify a form depending on your process.”
Wismer explained that companies can have the information submitters sign either a paper document or eSign a digital record certifying the accuracy of the data they are providing.
“You want them to certify everything’s accurate, that they understand that you’re going to file based on the information (they provided), they take responsibility for the accuracy,” Wismer said. “You told them the requirements. You’ve done everything you can because you can’t stop somebody from lying at the end of the day.”
If companies have each party submitting information sign this type of form, the party who certified that their information was correct will be held responsible if it’s later determined that they provided false data, according to Wismer.
For companies that handle a small number of closings a month, Wismer’s firm, fincenrealestatereport.com, provides a form that companies can have information submitters sign to certify that they are providing accurate information. For companies that handle a large amount of closings in a month, the firm provides a filing service and
software that firms can use for the information collection, certification and filing process.
When should automation be
implemented?
Wismer said it’s important for title and settlement firms to examine the number of closings they are handling when evaluating whether they should implement some forms
of automation in connection with filling out and filing reports.
“Once you’re starting to cross into that five to 10 range on a monthly basis, automation starts to make a lot of sense,” Wismer said.
Wismer’s firm offers tools to help companies comply with the requirements and with the collection of information.
“Some people choose our software just for the simple purpose of not having to be in the situation where they have to ask for (the transaction information),” Wismer said.
Once a report is finished, Wismer said industry professionals will be able to “quickly extract the FinCEN PDF. Once all parties submit, you click the button, it produces a finalized and signed PDF or batch filing and files with FinCEN.”
By using this software, Wismer noted companies won’t need to spend extra time retyping information and adding pages.
“The time commitment for them is they drop a document in, add the information, and then they invite everybody,” Wismer said. “(The software system) handles the reminders, the data collection. It gives them full awareness on any number of filings. So maybe a couple minutes to fill it out, share the links out. Once it’s collected everything, a couple minutes to … see it in the done pile, and then drop it in the FinCEN interface, mark it as filed, no retyping (needed) … It’s a very condensed process.”