New FinCEN Reporting Requirements Are Coming—Here’s What Residential Real Estate Professionals Need to Know

A significant regulatory change is on the horizon for residential real estate transactions. Beginning March 1, 2026, FinCEN will implement a nationwide reporting requirement that will impact many residential closings—particularly all-cash transactions and certain non-institutionally financed deals involving entities or trusts.

Unlike prior Geographic Targeting Orders, this new rule is not limited by price or location. It applies across the United States and introduces extensive reporting obligations, including detailed information about the property, the parties involved, beneficial ownership, and the source and movement of funds. The reporting responsibility may fall on title and settlement professionals, and failure to comply can result in serious civil and criminal penalties.

At Frontier Abstract, we are actively preparing for these changes. Our team is focused on building compliant workflows, enhancing data security, and helping our clients understand where reporting responsibility may fall—because our people make anything possible.

The following clarification of Frontier’s post dated June 18th was provided by the New York State Land Title Association, based on guidance from the New York State Commissioner of Taxation and Finance.

This clarification addresses how state tax warrants filed prior to July 1, 2025 on the Department of State's website may impact real property interests.

June 18, 2025

Subject: Important Change to New York Tax Law Affecting Real Property – Effective July 1, 2025

Dear Clients,

We want to alert you to a major change in New York State tax law that will affect real property interests and title searches statewide.

On May 9, 2025, New York State amended Section 6 of the Tax Law, effective July 1^st. Under this change, any tax warrant filed electronically by the Department of Taxation and Finance with the Department of State will create a statewide lien on all real, personal, and after-acquired property of the taxpayer—without the need for county-level filing.

Effective October 1, 2024, the Title Insurance Rate Service Association, after approval of the NYS Department of Financial Services, will replace the currently used ALTA 2006 title policy form with a new ALTA 2021 policy form.  The new policy form has already been in use in many other states, and major lenders are already familiar with them. ALL title insurance providers in New York State will be required to use the new policy form.

Part “O” of the recently passed 2024 New York State Budget contains some items that are of interest to the title

insurance community. Entitled “The Heirs Property Protection and Deed Theft Prevention Act of 2024”, these

items are intended to address the increasingly publicized problems of theft of real property through either

forgery or fraud, the protection of heirs to real property from partition actions by non-family members, and also

would now permit “transfer on death” deeds in NYS.