Starting in March, residential real estate transactions will have to make disclosures under new anti-money laundering requirements from the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
FinCEN's residential real estate rule is broader than the Corporate Transparency Act, which was largely defanged last year. It has implications not only for one-off residential real estate transactions, but also for transfers of residential real estate that occur in mergers and acquisitions, according to Jamie A. Schafer, a partner at Perkins Coie LLP and firmwide chair of the regulatory compliance and disputes practice.
The new rule may also be a prelude to future anti-money laundering policies that regulators could develop to address money laundering in commercial real estate, a risk FinCEN has repeatedly highlighted in recent years.
