A federal reporting obligation landed on residential closings this year on March 1. On March 19 a federal court vacated it nationwide.
Nineteen days.
Almost nobody in this market has a clear picture of where it now stands, so here it is in full.
What the rule requires
FinCEN's Residential Real Estate Rule (31 CFR 1031.320) makes whoever appears as the closing or settlement agent report non-financed transfers of residential property to a legal entity or a trust — and collect the beneficial owners behind that entity.
| Item | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Transferee beneficial owners | Name, date of birth, residential address, citizenship, TIN or passport number |
| Transferor | Name, address, TIN |
| Transaction | Total consideration, payment method, financial institutions involved |
| Dollar threshold | None. Low-value transfers, and transfers for no consideration at all, are reportable |
| Deadline | The later of the last day of the month after closing, or 30 calendar days after closing |
| Retention | Five years |
The reporting cascade starts with the closing or settlement agent and falls through the settlement-statement preparer, whoever records the deed, the owner's title underwriter, and whoever disburses the largest sum. In most transactions it lands on the title or escrow officer.
Where it stands today
Four lawsuits, and they did not agree.
| Case | Court & date | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Fidelity National Financial v. Bessent | M.D. Fla., 19 Feb | Rule upheld |
| Corley v. Treasury | N.D. Tex., 25 Feb | Rule upheld |
| Flowers Title Companies v. Bessent | E.D. Tex., 19 Mar | Vacated nationwide |
| Puerto Rico Privacy Assn. v. Treasury | D.P.R. | Paused pending appeal |
Flowers held that Congress never authorised FinCEN to require it. FinCEN appealed to the Fifth Circuit on May 11, and has stated plainly that during the vacatur there is no filing requirement and no liability for failing to file.
You owe nothing today. And the obligation is one appellate ruling away from returning — in a landscape where two district courts have already sided with the agency.
Why this is a process question, not a legal one
If it comes back, thirty days is the filing window. It is not enough time to invent a way to ask a buyer's attorney for five fields of beneficial-ownership data they have never been asked for, chase the half who ignore the first email, and get it into a form somebody can actually file from.
Cash purchases were 41.7% of all home sales in Q1 2026, per ATTOM. Entity buying is not evenly spread — it concentrates in exactly the inventory this market runs on: the Jersey City and Hoboken condo stack, the small-portfolio Bayonne landlord, the LLC that holds three doors in Union City.
Nobody publishes the county-level entity-purchase share for Hudson or Bergen, so I am not going to give you one. The national cash figure is real and checkable; the local concentration is an observation, and you have the better sample — your own last twelve months.
The test
Pull the last twelve months of closed files. Count the ones that were non-financed and where the buyer was an LLC, LP, corporation, or trust.
Then take any single one of them and ask: could I produce the beneficial owners' names, dates of birth, addresses, citizenship and TINs within thirty days of that closing? Where does that information live right now?
For most shops the honest answer to the second question is "in an email thread, if the attorney happened to send it." That is the gap — and it is much cheaper to close while nothing is at stake than in the month a circuit court hands down.
You don't need me to run that count. Run it.
Sources
- FinCEN, Residential Real Estate Rule, 31 CFR 1031.320, effective 1 March 2026 — reporting cascade, data fields, no dollar threshold, filing deadline, five-year retention, and current non-enforcement. FinCEN RRE FAQs.
- Flowers Title Companies LLC v. Bessent (E.D. Tex., 19 March 2026) — rule vacated nationwide; appeal to the Fifth Circuit filed 11 May 2026. Analysis.
- Fidelity National Financial Inc. v. Bessent (M.D. Fla., 19 February 2026); Corley v. U.S. Dept. of the Treasury (N.D. Tex., 25 February 2026); Puerto Rico Privacy Association v. Treasury (D.P.R.). Status summary.
- Reporting-person obligations, data fields and deadline detail. Katten.
- ATTOM, Q1 2026 U.S. Home Sales Report — cash sales 41.7% of all purchases; institutional investors 6.6%. Report.