FinCEN's New Residential Real Estate Reporting Rule: Covered Entities and Property Transfers; Reporting Requirements
Effective Dec. 1, 2025; Best Practices for Preparation and Compliance
Course Details
- smart_display Format
Live Online with Live Q&A
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
Intermediate
- work Practice Area
Real Property - Transactions
- event Date
Thursday, October 9, 2025
- schedule Time
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
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This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
This CLE webinar will guide practitioners through the Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's (FinCEN) long-awaited residential real estate reporting rule, effective Dec. 1, 2025, to increase transparency in non-financed residential real estate transactions that will significantly impact covered real estate entities. The panel will address who is covered by the new rule, the reporting requirements, and best practices to prepare for compliance.
Mr. LaViña is Barnes & Thornburg’s Real Estate department chair. As a trusted business lawyer and adviser, he closes complex transactions and provides strategic advice to his many successful clients. With more than three decades of experience, Mr. LaViña serves as a battle-tested leader who listens attentively and executes client objectives swiftly, whether closing a multistate marquee deal or fixing a local problem. Clients turn to him for guidance with their deal ventures and he has closed or supervised transactions totaling nearly $15 billion dollars over the past decade. Mr. LaViña is a skilled negotiator and communicator with deep experience in virtually all areas of real estate, including acquisitions and sales, joint ventures, multifamily transactions, 1031 exchanges, real estate fund formation, development and construction, public-private and multistate matters, and he is even a licensed broker that works on his own deals. Mr. LaViña also represents developers, builders, brokers, sellers and buyers of high-end residential properties in California, including family offices, high net worth individuals, celebrities, athletes, and others. He is an invited guest speaker throughout the business community on real estate, finance, forecasting and business development topics.
Ms. Freeny, a skilled trial attorney and former federal prosecutor for the Special Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, draws on more than a dozen years of high-profile experience in the federal government to help clients navigate sensitive government and internal investigations, criminal and civil enforcement matters, and related complex litigation. She has particular experience in matters involving complex financial crime, cross-border investigations, anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, economic sanctions, asset forfeiture, and affirmative challenges to federal agency action. Ms. Freeny counsels clients facing scrutiny from DOJ, the SEC, FinCEN, and other law enforcement and financial regulatory agencies. She conducts internal investigations on a range of issues and advises clients on a wide array of anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, and other compliance issues.
In its ongoing efforts to combat and deter money laundering, FinCEN's long-awaited final rule that extends anti-money laundering reporting requirements to the residential real estate sector nationwide and increases the transparency of certain non-financed real estate transactions goes into effect Dec. 1, 2025.
The final rule covers businesses, including attorneys, performing specified closing or settlement functions for the non-financed sale or transfer of residential real property to a legal entity or trust. The final rule requires a reporting person, as identified in a reporting cascade, to collect and report certain information related to the transaction to FinCEN in a Real Estate Report.
Reportable information includes beneficial ownership information for the legal entity (transferee entity) or trust (transferee trust) receiving the property, information about individuals representing the transferee entity or transferee trust, information about the residential real property being sold or transferred, information about the transferor/seller, and information about any payments made.
Real estate counsel and clients should understand the extensive reporting requirements, including required reporting persons, reportable transfers of property, and reportable transferees, in order to perform the due diligence required and put processes in place to prepare for reporting obligations.
Listen as our expert panel guides practitioners through the FinCEN final rule soon to take effect and discusses the impact the reporting requirements will have on covered real estate businesses. The panel will also offer best practices for taking steps now to prepare for compliance.
I. Introduction to the final rule
A. Purpose
B. Bank Secrecy Act
C. Residential Real Estate GTO Program
II. The final rule
A. Covered transfers of residential real property
B. Reporting requirements
C. Reporting persons
D. Report filing and recordkeeping
E. Exemptions
F. Penalties for noncompliance
III. Compliance timeline
IV. Next steps: preparing for compliance obligations
V. Practitioner takeaways
The panel will review these and other important considerations:
- Who are required reporting entities? Reporting persons?
- What information will be required to be reported?
- Who are the reportable transferees and to what residential real estate transactions does the final rule apply?
- What steps should counsel and their clients take now to prepare for compliance?
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