Our Focus During the FinCEN Pause
Our Commitment During the Pause
Our focus during this time is continuing to support you with updates, guidance, and resources while making it no-cost to continue ordering reports and keeping them at Clear to Close status. That way you are ready when the regulation resumes without losing your compliance workflows. We do not bill for reports or consume credits until we file, and we are absorbing the cost of maintaining compliance for you during this pause. Continued support and keeping up with your needs during the pause is our highest priority right now. Below we address the current situation, what comes next, and common billing questions.
Where things stand
A federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas paused the FinCEN residential real estate reporting rule nationwide, making the rule currently unenforceable while an appeal plays out. This is the same district court commonly used for these challenges that paused Corporate Transparency Act reporting, which resumed within weeks after appeals through the Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court. We expect this to follow a similar path and for the rule to resume, as it is uncommon for a single federal judge to remove an entire regulation and many further processes would need to take place before such a removal is final.
What typically happens next
When CTA reporting was paused by this same court, the government filed its appeal within ten days, the Fifth Circuit lifted the pause by day twenty, and the Supreme Court stayed the injunction by day fifty-one, resuming filing requirements. FinCEN’s appeals have moved quickly in these situations. It is very early in this process and a single district judge’s ruling on a national regulation rarely stands as the final word. The regulation remains on the books pending appeal and it is extremely early to plan for unwinding your real estate reporting processes. FinCEN’s website messaging matches very closely to what they used just prior to their appeal filing around BOI, a regulation pause that was ultimately resumed by the Supreme Court in less than fifty days. The Fidelity case and its arguments would be considered in any upcoming appeal and not only the ruling from East Texas, a court commonly used to challenge federal rules.
What we're doing during the pause
We are actively rolling out features to help you manage the pause, including a dashboard toggle to pause customer reminders without cancelling reports, the ability to cancel and recover reports, and continued improvements based on feedback in preparation for a resumption of the rule. We are not less busy. We are more so, keeping up with the needs coming from this case along with our existing roadmap. We will continue shipping updates throughout the pause.
Billing and refunds
For pay-later plans, we do not bill unless we file. Keeping reports at Clear to Close and using the platform to stay prepared costs you nothing. No invoices are generated during the pause for reports that have not been filed.
For prepaid plans, credits are not consumed until a report is marked closed, so no credits are being drawn during the pause. To account for the time lost during this period, we are extending all prepaid report credit expirations by two months effectively immediately. We estimate this to be longer than the pause itself so your credits are protected regardless of how quickly the appeals process moves.
It is very early in this process and we are not prioritizing policy updates around refunds at this time. We expect the rule to resume and are building to keep you ready for that.
How to stay updated
Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] with any questions. We understand this is a confusing and uncertain time for everyone in the industry. We are here, we are watching this closely, and we will continue to assist and update you every step of the way.
