When the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced sweeping new reporting requirements, one Texas title agent decided she couldn’t stay silent.
Instead of quietly complying, Flowers and Davis PLLC Senior Partner Celia Flowers became the lead plaintiff in a national lawsuit challenging the legality of the rule, alongside her attorney, Luke Wake of the Pacific Legal Foundation.
They shared their story with October Research Chief Knowledge Officer Mary Schuster during an episode of the Keys to Real Estate podcast.
“This whole narrative that they [FinCEN] want to paint that there’s all this nefarious business and there’s some sort of gaping hole out there because they haven’t previously required reporting like this of non-financed transactions,” Wake said. “It’s malarkey, frankly, because when someone is involved in one of these transactions, they’re not showing up like Walter White [the main character from the TV show ‘Breaking Bad’] with duffle bags full of cash. The money is coming from another financial institution that has an obligation under the existing framework to report suspicious transactions. So it's not like this is unregulated.”
Listen to their discussion about what’s at stake for the separation of powers, privacy and the future of compliance in real estate transactions by following this link.