`[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 219 (Wednesday, November 13, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 89700-89716]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-26262]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

RIN 1506-AB54


Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection; 
Comment Request; Real Estate Reports

AGENCY: Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Treasury.

ACTION: Notice and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: FinCEN invites all interested parties to comment on the 
proposed information collection associated with the requirement to 
report information about certain residential real estate transfers, as 
required by the Anti-Money Laundering Regulations for Residential Real 
Estate Transfers final rule published on August 29, 2024. The details 
included in the information collection are listed below. This request 
for comment is made pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

DATES: Written comments are welcome and must be received on or before 
January 13, 2025.

ADDRESSES: Comments may be submitted by any of the following methods:
     Federal E-rulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov/. 
Follow the instructions for submitting comments. Refer to Docket Number 
FINCEN-2024-0019 and the specific Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 
control number 1506-0080.
     Mail: Policy Division, Financial Crimes Enforcement 
Network, P.O. Box 39, Vienna, VA 22183. Refer to Docket Number FINCEN-
2024-0019 and OMB control number 1506-0080.
    Please submit comments by one method only. Comments will be 
reviewed consistent with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) and 
applicable OMB regulations and guidance. Comments submitted in response 
to this notice will become a matter of public record. Therefore, you 
should submit only information that you wish to make publicly 
available.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: FinCEN's Regulatory Support Section at 
1-800-767-2825 or electronically at [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Statutory and Regulatory Provisions

    The legislative framework generally referred to as the Bank Secrecy 
Act (BSA) consists of the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting 
Act of 1970, as amended by the Uniting and

[[Page 89701]]

Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to 
Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (USA PATRIOT Act) \1\ and 
other legislation, including the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AML 
Act).\2\ The BSA is codified at 12 U.S.C. 1829b, 1951-1960 and 31 
U.S.C. 5311-5314, 5316-5336, including notes thereto, with implementing 
regulations at 31 CFR chapter X.
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    \1\ USA PATRIOT Act, Public Law 107-56, 115 Stat. 272 (2001).
    \2\ The AML Act was enacted as Division F, sections 6001-6511, 
of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization 
Act for Fiscal Year 2021, Public Law 116-283, 134 Stat. 3388.
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    The BSA authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury (Secretary) to, 
inter alia, require financial institutions to keep records and file 
reports that are determined to have a high degree of usefulness in 
criminal, tax, or regulatory matters, risk assessments or proceedings, 
or in the conduct of intelligence or counter-intelligence activities to 
protect against terrorism, and to implement anti-money laundering/
countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) programs and compliance 
procedures.\3\ The authority of the Secretary to administer the BSA has 
been delegated to the Director of FinCEN.\4\
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    \3\ See 31 U.S.C. 5311.
    \4\ Treasury Order 180-01 (Jan. 14, 2020); see also 31 U.S.C. 
310(b)(2)(I) (providing that FinCEN Director ``[a]dminister the 
requirements of subchapter II of chapter 53 of this title, chapter 2 
of title I of Public Law 91-508, and section 21 of the Federal 
Deposit Insurance Act, to the extent delegated such authority by the 
Secretary.'').
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    Among the financial institutions subject to these requirements are 
``persons involved in real estate closings and settlements.'' \5\ In 
particular, section 5318(g) of the BSA authorizes the Secretary to 
require financial institutions to report, via Suspicious Activity 
Reports (SARs), any ``suspicious transactions relevant to a possible 
violation of law or regulation.'' \6\ However, the BSA affords the 
Secretary flexibility in implementing that requirement, and indeed 
directs the Secretary to consider ``the means by or form in which the 
Secretary shall receive such reporting,'' including the relevant 
``burdens imposed by such means or form of reporting,'' ``the 
efficiency of the means or form,'' and the ``benefits derived by the 
means or form of reporting.'' \7\ A provision added to the BSA by 
section 6202 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AML Act) further 
directs FinCEN to ``establish streamlined . . . processes to, as 
appropriate, permit the filing of noncomplex categories of reports of 
suspicious activity.'' In assessing whether streamlined filing is 
appropriate, FinCEN must determine, among other things, that such 
reports would ``reduce burdens imposed on persons required to 
report[,]'' while at the same time ``not diminish[ing] the usefulness 
of the reporting to Federal law enforcement agencies, national security 
officials, and the intelligence community in combating financial crime, 
including the financing of terrorism[.]'' \8\
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    \5\ See 31 U.S.C. 5312(a)(2)(U).
    \6\ See 31 U.S.C. 5318(g)(1)(A).
    \7\ See 31 U.S.C. 5318(g)(5)(B)(i)-(iii).
    \8\ See AML Act, section 6202 (codified at 31 U.S.C. 
5318(g)(D)(i)(1)).
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    On August 29, 2024, FinCEN issued a final rule, ``Anti-Money 
Laundering Regulations for Residential Real Estate Transfers,'' 
hereafter referred to as the Residential Real Estate Rule (RRE 
Rule).\9\ The RRE Rule requires certain persons involved in real estate 
closings and settlements (reporting persons) to submit reports to 
FinCEN and keep records on certain non-financed transfers of 
residential real property to specified legal entities and trusts on a 
nationwide basis. The reports are expected to curtail the ability of 
illicit actors to launder illicit proceeds anonymously through 
transfers of residential real property, which threatens U.S. economic 
and national security. More broadly, the reports are expected to assist 
the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury), law enforcement, and 
national security agencies in addressing illicit finance 
vulnerabilities in the U.S. residential real estate sector. The rule 
describes the circumstances in which a report must be filed, who must 
file a report, what information must be provided, and when a report is 
due.
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    \9\ FinCEN, Final Rule, ``Anti-Money Laundering Regulations for 
Residential Real Estate Transfers,'' 89 FR 70258 (Aug. 29, 2024).
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II. Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 \10\
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    \10\ Public Law 104-13, 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(2)(A).
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    FinCEN conducted certain supplemental analyses, which are discussed 
below, to estimate the incremental Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) burden 
\11\ attributable to the specifics of the proposed information 
collection associated with the RRE Rule, particularly those relating to 
the Real Estate Report (RER), including both the proposed data fields 
of the RER and the mechanism by which a RER would be submitted to 
FinCEN. Public comments on this analysis, including relevant, readily 
generalizable data that would improve the accuracy of FinCEN's 
estimates, are invited.
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    \11\ This is intended to include the ``time, effort, or 
financial resources expended to generate, [. . .] or disclose or 
provide information to'' FinCEN as required by the PRA. See Carey 
and Ortiz, ``The Paperwork Reduction Act and Federal Collections of 
Information: A Brief Overview'' (Apr. 17, 2024).
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    Title: Real Estate Reports.
    OMB Control Number: 1506-0080.
    Type of Collection: Revision.
    Description: The RRE Rule imposes a new reporting and recordkeeping 
requirement on certain persons involved in real estate closings and 
settlements, or reporting persons, when they perform certain functions 
in relation to non-financed transfers of residential real property to a 
specified legal entity or a trust. The reports are to be filed 
electronically through an online interface using the same free system 
that other financial institutions required to file BSA reports use for 
purposes other than in connection with real estate transactions.\12\ 
For some reporting persons, this system will already be familiar and 
ready for use as it is also the same filing system for submitting 
reports under geographic targeting orders relating to non-financed 
transfers of residential real estate (Residential Real Estate GTOs). 
Reporting persons who do not already use FinCEN's BSA E-filing system 
will first need to enroll. The enrollment process for FinCEN's BSA E-
Filing System entails identifying the reporting person and assigning a 
designated Supervisory User.\13\ The Supervisory User is an individual 
who will facilitate the process of creating general user accounts for 
the reporting person's other employees, if any, that may file RERs; the 
Supervisory User has access to system functionality not available to 
regular users, such as ability to update filing organization 
information and track the status of filings submitted by all users from 
across the organization. To file RERs through FinCEN's BSA E-Filing 
System, individual users will be required to create a login.gov account 
(if they have not already done so for other purposes).\14\ Once the 
enrollment process has been completed, the BSA E-Filing System will 
provide three different filing options for RERs. Filers

[[Page 89702]]

will file individual reports either through an online form or as a PDF 
form, or filers may file multiple reports through a user-developed 
automated interface.
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    \12\ Other BSA reports include, for example, Suspicious Activity 
Reports (SARs) and Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts 
(FBARs). See FinCEN, BSA E-Filing System, ``Supported Forms'', 
available at https://bsaefiling.fincen.treas.gov/SupportedForms.html.
    \13\ If the enrolling party intends to be the sole user of the 
access being set up, there is no distinction between the person 
named as Supervisory User and the general user, and there would be 
only one account.
    \14\ Login.gov is available at https://www.login.gov/. To create 
a Login.gov account, users will be required to provide an email 
address and a form of identification. BSA E-filing is available at 
https://bsaefiling.fincen.treas.gov gov.
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    The proposed RER contains 111 distinct fields, of which, FinCEN 
expects approximately 60 percent must be completed to report a given 
transfer per the requirements specified in the RRE rule.\15\ The form 
may require as few as approximately 40 fields to be completed, and 
FinCEN anticipates that significantly more fields may be required for 
certain highly complex reportable transfers, such as those with 
multiple beneficial owners or multiple sources of funds that would 
require the same fields to be populated for each owner or source of 
funds.
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    \15\ Because the requirement for certain fields to be populated 
is unique to the facts and circumstances of a given transfer, not 
all 111 original fields are relevant to each potential reportable 
transfer. However, due to the possibility that in some transfers, a 
single individual may perform more than one role, some fields might 
need to be completed more than once for the same individual, causing 
the number of fields completed in practice to exceed the percent of 
fields required to be completed for a given RER.
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    The effective date of the RRE Rule is December 1, 2025. As set 
forth in the rule, the RER must contain information about the person 
filing the report (the ``reporting person''), the legal entity (the 
``transferee entity'') or trust (the ``transferee trust'') receiving 
ownership of the property, the beneficial owners of the transferee 
entity or transferee trust, certain individuals signing documents on 
behalf of the transferee entity or transferee trust, the transferor 
(e.g., the seller), the property being transferred, and any payments 
made.\16\ The reporting person may reasonably rely on information 
obtained from others, absent knowledge of facts that would reasonably 
call into question the reliability of that information. For purposes of 
reporting beneficial ownership information in particular, a reporting 
person may reasonably rely on information obtained from a transferee or 
the transferee's representative if the accuracy of the information is 
certified in writing to the best of the information provider's own 
knowledge. The collected information will be maintained by FinCEN and 
made accessible to authorized users.
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    \16\ See FinCEN, Final Rule, ``Anti-Money Laundering Regulations 
for Residential Real Estate Transfers,'' 89 FR 70258 (Aug. 29, 
2024). See also Appendix.
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    Report: Real Estate Report.
    Affected Public: Residential Real Estate Settlement Agents, Title 
Insurance Carriers, Escrow Service Providers, Attorneys and Offices of 
Attorneys, and Other Real Estate Professionals.

A. Respondent-Based Incremental Reporting Burdens

    Estimated Number of Respondents: One per reportable transaction.
    As explained in the RRE Rule, the reporting person for any transfer 
is one of a number of persons who perform specified roles in a given 
real estate closing and settlement, with the specific reporting person 
determined through a cascading approach, unless superseded by a 
designation agreement among persons in the reporting cascade.\17\ The 
reporting cascade is ordered by function performed or service provided, 
rather than by the defined primary occupations (i.e., job titles such 
as real estate agent) or categories of service providers (e.g., real 
estate lawyers), because the role of the reporting person provides more 
clarity about their placement in the reporting cascade rather than a 
job title or occupational category or similar attribute originally 
intended for census purposes.
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    \17\ The reporting cascade consists of a list of seven different 
functions that a real estate professional may perform in a transfer 
of residential real property, with the reporting obligation for any 
such transfer applying to the professional that performed a function 
that appears highest on the list. For example, the first function on 
the list is the professional listed as the agent on the closing or 
settlement statement. If no such professional is involved in the 
transfer, then the reporting obligation applies to any professional 
that performed the second function on the list (i.e., the 
professional that prepared the closing or settlement statement), and 
so on down the list. See FinCEN, Final Rule, ``Anti-Money Laundering 
Regulations for Residential Real Estate Transfers,'' 89 FR 70258, 
70290-70291 (Aug. 29, 2024).
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    To estimate the total number of respondents in the RRE Rule, FinCEN 
grouped potential reporting persons by features of their primary 
occupation and treated them as functionally distinct members of the 
cascade.\18\ In the final rule, FinCEN estimated that there may be up 
to approximately 172,753 reporting persons and 642,508 employees of 
those persons.\19\ While FinCEN continues to treat these estimates as 
an expected upper bound on the number of persons who could incur the 
reporting burden estimated in this notice, it is likely that the number 
of reporting persons and affected employees that would in practice 
incur the full incremental burden estimated in this notice would be 
much lower. In its experience with the more limited Residential Real 
Estate GTOs, FinCEN data suggests that most reporting has been 
performed by a concentrated subset of the total population of potential 
reporting entities and that few identifiably unique individual 
employees per reporting person are associated with the reports 
filed.\20\ For example, from the date of the first effective 
Residential Real Estate GTOs in March 2016 through the end of August 
2024, FinCEN estimates that approximately 64 percent of all reports 
filed \21\ were submitted by the five largest title companies \22\ and 
an additional 8 percent, approximately, were filed by the remaining 15 
of the 20 largest title companies.\23\ The residual share of total 
reports filed were submitted by either smaller title companies or law 
offices, with an average filing volume of 16 GTO reports filed per 
remaining filer and an average of one identifiably distinct employee 
filer per reporting year per reporting entity. Consequently, a number 
of the incremental burden estimates presented below have been 
calculated over a smaller subpopulation of the total number of 
respondents as estimated in the RRE Rule.
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    \18\ Analysis of Residential Real Estate GTO filings to date 
illustrates certain potential limitations of this approach because 
it demonstrates that covered businesses under the GTO requirements 
(which are limited to title insurance agents), may function in a 
role other than their self-identified primary occupation. To 
illustrate, FinCEN notes that of the approximately 2,400 
identifiably unique filers who submitted at least one Residential 
Real Estate GTO report through August 2024, approximately 38.4 
percent self-identified as either primarily employed as an attorney 
or the employee of a law office.
    \19\ See FinCEN, Final Rule, ``Anti-Money Laundering Regulations 
for Residential Real Estate Transfers,'' 89 FR 70258, 70283 (Aug. 
29, 2024).
    \20\ See 31 U.S.C. 5326; 31 CFR 1010.370; Treasury Order 180-01 
(Jan. 14, 2020), available at https://home.treasury.gov/about/general-information/orders-and-directives/treasury-order-180-01. In 
general, a GTO is an order administered by FinCEN which, for a 
finite period of time, imposes additional recordkeeping or reporting 
requirements on domestic financial institutions or other businesses 
in a given geographic area, based on a finding that the additional 
requirements are necessary to carry out the purposes of, or to 
prevent evasion of, the BSA. The statutory maximum duration of a GTO 
is 180 days unless further renewed. Since 2016, the Residential Real 
Estate GTOs have required certain title insurance companies to file 
reports and maintain records concerning non-financed purchases of 
residential real estate above a specific price threshold by certain 
legal entities in select metropolitan areas of the United States.
    \21\ This includes both reports filed on Form 8300, which were 
originally required for reports filed by the Residential Real Estate 
GTOss, and on a Currency Transaction Report (CTR), which has been 
the required form for the GTOs since April 13, 2018. FinCEN has 
included GTO reports incorrectly filed using Form 8300 after April 
13, 2018, in its analysis because they conceptually represent 
reporting activity undertaken regarding real estate transfers of 
interest.
    \22\ As measured by market share at the end of calendar year 
2022.
    \23\ Id.
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    Estimated Burden per Respondent: 50 minutes.\24\
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    \24\ FinCEN bases this estimate on an expected average training 
time cost of 30 minutes for one natural person per year and a one-
time technology time cost of 1 hour, or 20 minutes per year for 
three years. FinCEN intends to request comment on filers' realized 
technology costs and is prepared to further refine this estimate 
upon renewal of the OMB control number.

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[[Page 89703]]

    FinCEN continues to acknowledge that some costs related to the 
proposed information collection may be independent of a potential 
respondent ever submitting an RER. These may be expected to include 
certain training and reporting mechanism-specific technology costs.
Training Costs
    As in the regulatory impact analyses (RIAs) in both the February 
2024 notice of proposed rulemaking (RRE NPRM) and the RRE Rule, FinCEN 
continues to expect that all potential reporting persons and at least 
some proportion of their respective employees, as a proper superset of 
all actual reporting persons, are likely to engage in some measure of 
preparatory training in advance of any instance in which a non-
designatable reporting requirement is realized.\25\ Unlike the RRE NPRM 
and RRE Rule however, FinCEN has considered it appropriate to include 
an incremental estimate of training costs as part of the PRA burden in 
this 60-day Notice. This is because training in how to complete and 
submit the RER itself represents an expenditure of resources without 
which it would not be possible to ``disclose or provide information 
to'' \26\ FinCEN because the RER filing will be the only mechanism by 
which a reporting person may inform FinCEN of a reportable transfer.
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    \25\ See FinCEN, NPRM, ``Anti-Money Laundering Regulations for 
Residential Real Estate Transfers,'' 89 FR 12424 (Feb. 16, 2024), 
and FinCEN, Final Rule, ``Anti-Money Laundering Regulations for 
Residential Real Estate Transfers,'' 89 FR 70258 (Aug. 29, 2024).
    \26\ See supra note 11.
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    The training burden contemplated in this notice is therefore 
intended to include an estimate of only the average expected reporting 
person's necessary training specific to the completion of the RER in 
the format proposed, using the submission process anticipated to be 
adopted by such persons and their employees. It is intended to capture 
aspects of training distinct from, and complementary to, the broader 
training necessary to ensure adequate familiarity with the RRE Rule 
generally and a reporting person's compliance policies and procedures 
specifically.\27\
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    \27\ As discussed in Section VI.A.4.a.i. of the RRE Rule, where 
the training burden was intended to capture ``the costs of preparing 
informational material and training personnel about the proposed 
rule generally as well as certain firm-specific policies and 
procedures related to reporting, complying, and documenting 
compliance.''
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    In two rounds of FinCEN's internal tests of user experience with 
the RER, participants with self-reported prior familiarity with the RRE 
Rule ranging from none to moderate were provided with 10 to 20 minutes 
of training and instruction on how to complete a RER before being 
provided with sample scenarios of varying complexity, which were then 
used to populate a simulated version of the report. Participants' 
responses to a post-exercise survey reported that, conditional on 
adequate familiarity with the rule, 78.9 percent found the training 
time they were provided to be adequate, while 21.1 percent signaled 
that more training time would be needed, expressing a belief that a 
mean training time including 22 additional minutes would be necessary. 
Participants who reported that more training time than they received 
would be helpful did not perform meaningfully differently from 
participants who reported a belief that the training time they received 
was adequate. While participants who recommended longer training scored 
an average of 3.2 percentage points lower than other participants, this 
difference could not be determined to be statistically significant.
    FinCEN took into consideration the results of its internal testing 
as well as certain comments received in response to the RRE NPRM that 
FinCEN's estimates of training time needs were insufficient.\28\ FinCEN 
continues to believe that these comments may have intended to include 
both form-specific and form-independent training and that its 
expectation that an average of 30 minutes per trained employee is 
necessary for report-specific training is consistent with both the 
results of its testing and public comments received.
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    \28\ One commenter suggested FinCEN estimates should be 
increased by 45 minutes, another by 75 minutes, and a third 
suggested the training burden should be estimated at one hour per 
report filed (or 850,000 hours annually).
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Technology Costs
    FinCEN recognizes that potential reporting persons may need or opt 
to incur certain technology related expenditures to facilitate their 
filing activity, and that these costs may vary by the format and filing 
mechanism choices of the individual business. As in the RRE NPRM and 
the RRE Rule, FinCEN continues to anticipate that most reporting 
persons will make use of the online form and PDF form options. FinCEN 
is continuing to not assign an incremental cost for use of technology 
that is already incorporated into the ordinary business operations of 
potential respondents. However, FinCEN is assigning a non-recurring 
time cost of one hour per respondent associated with setting up access 
and accounts in the BSA E-Filing System.\29\
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    \29\ For entities that have already set up access in the course 
of Residential Real Estate GTO reporting compliance, this burden can 
be alternatively interpreted as a 20 minute per year burden, over 
three years, associated with maintaining accounts. In FinCEN's 
review of Residential Real Estate GTO filings, it appears that while 
certain filers have submitted reports in each of the past nine 
years, the individual user(s) submitting the filing does not remain 
the same for more than one or two years at a time.
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    FinCEN is not including additional cost estimates at this time 
associated with adopting new technologies that would facilitate batch-
filing because while Residential Real Estate GTO filers have had the 
option to file reports in batch format since 2018,\30\ FinCEN has not 
yet received any reportable real estate transaction filings in batch 
format.\31\ FinCEN acknowledges that this may underestimate costs 
which, because of the difference in scale and scope of the reporting 
requirements under the RRE Rule from those under the Residential Real 
Estate GTOs, certain reporting persons may now find it more cost 
effective to invest in technological updates that would facilitate 
batch filing. To the extent that this may be the case, FinCEN is 
soliciting public comment, including information on the expected per 
business costs and the anticipated benefits of these technological 
investments.
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    \30\ While it has been possible to batch file CTRs since May 18, 
2017 (see FinCEN Currency Transaction Report (CTR) Electronic Filing 
Requirements (treas.gov)), Residential Real Estate GTOs originally 
required reports to be submitted using Form 8300 (see note 20), 
which did not have a batch-filing option until March 2019 (see 
XMLUserGuide_FinCEN8300.pdf (treas.gov)). This analysis therefore 
treats 2018 as the earliest year in which Residential Real Estate 
GTO filers would have been able to submit batch filings.
    \31\ Data analyzed covers the period January 1, 2016, through 
August 31, 2024, and includes both Form 8300 and CTR GTO filings.
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B. Response-Based Incremental Reporting Burdens

    Estimated Number of Responses: 850,000 per year.\32\
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    \32\ See FinCEN, Final Rule, ``Anti-Money Laundering Regulations 
for Residential Real Estate Transfers,'' 89 FR 70258, 70277 (Aug. 
29, 2024).
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    As described in the RRE Rule, because the specific conditions under 
which a person in the reporting cascade becomes the reporting person 
for a reportable transfer and would consequently file the RER may 
depend on factors unique to the specific reportable transaction, FinCEN 
considers it more appropriate to assign the remainder of the estimated 
incremental burden associated with the proposed information collection 
on a

[[Page 89704]]

per response basis rather than on a per respondent basis.
    Frequency of Response: Once per reportable transfer.\33\
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    \33\ While FinCEN anticipates that some reported transfers may 
subsequently require amendment or revision, it is not inclined to 
speculate at this time on the potential future rate of refiling. 
Additionally, because FinCEN is revising its estimated time burden 
associated with RER completion in this notice to account for time 
reporting persons may need to review and revise reports before 
submission, this should correspond to a reduced need for additional 
filings per reportable transfer. FinCEN intends to review the inflow 
of filings to assess the realized volume of amendment filings and is 
prepared to further refine this estimate upon renewal of the OMB 
control-number.
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    Estimated Incremental Time per Response: 15 minutes, or 0.25 hours.
    In the RRE NPRM and the RRE Rule, FinCEN estimated that the 
reporting person would need an average of 2 hours per reportable 
transfer to collect and review transferee and transfer-specific 
reportable information and related documents, and an average of 30 
minutes in additional time to complete and submit a RER. In providing 
this notice in connection with the proposed RER, FinCEN considered 
whether any elements of the specific format of the proposed RER and the 
proposed available variations in format and filing mechanisms might 
reasonably be expected to increase the previously estimated reporting 
burden. Similarly, FinCEN conducted internal testing that simulated the 
use of the proposed report to assess whether time in excess of the 
originally budgeted 30 minutes to file a report might be systematically 
necessary to represent the expected average completion and review 
needed to submit a RER.
    Based on its two rounds of internal testing, FinCEN observed that 
the originally budgeted 30 minutes was generally sufficient insofar as 
the participants' self-reported time used to complete a RER for a 
transfer of low-complexity \34\ was approximately 27 minutes on 
average. However, the average error rate in low-complexity responses 
was approximately 10 percent. Additionally, the average self-reported 
time needed to complete a high-complexity RER was 9 minutes longer than 
for a low-complexity RER and the average error rate was approximately 6 
percentage points higher. While there are certain limitations to the 
generalizability of FinCEN's internal testing, the results suggest that 
to incorporate sufficient time for reporting persons to review 
completed RERs for accuracy before submission and to account for the 
additional fields that must be completed and reviewed for transfers of 
higher complexity, the originally budgeted 30 minutes may be 
insufficient. FinCEN is revising its estimated time upward by 15 
minutes, on average, per response to account for the time needed for 
variation in transfer complexity and the review of completed RERs.
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    \34\ In FinCEN's internal testing, complexity represents the 
number of informational units that the study-participant would be 
required to report in the fields of the simulated RER.
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C. Total Incremental Reporting Burden Estimates

    Estimated Total Incremental Reporting Burden Hours: 356,461 
hours.\35\
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    \35\ This estimate includes an expected respondent-based 
incremental burden of 0.83 hours per potential reporting person 
(172,753) and a response-based incremental burden of 0.25 hours per 
response (850,000). The total is rounded to the nearest whole hour.
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    Estimated Reporting Burden Hours in the RRE Rule: In the RRE Rule, 
FinCEN estimated that up to a maximum number of four non-reporting 
persons could be expected to incur a 15-minute reporting burden and 
that the reporting person who files a Real Estate Report that is also a 
party to a designation agreement would incur a three-hour reporting 
burden. In total, FinCEN estimated a PRA reporting and recordkeeping 
burden of 4,604,167 hours annually.
    Revised Estimate of Total Burden Hours: The supplemental burden 
hour estimated in this notice is 50 minutes per potential respondent 
and 15 minutes per response per year, or approximately 356,461 hours in 
total, which would increase the total PRA burden associated with Anti-
Money Laundering Regulations for Residential Real Estate Transfers 
under OMB control number 1506-0080 by approximately 7.7 percent from 
4,604,167 to 4,960,628 hours.
    Estimated Total Incremental Reporting Cost: $45,324,233.33.\36\
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    \36\ This estimate includes an expected respondent-based 
incremental burden of $12,709,733.33 and a response-based 
incremental burden of $32,614,500.00 (using the same conservative 
assumptions as in the RRE Rule PRA).
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    Estimated Reporting Cost in the RRE Rule: Based on the range of 
expected reportable transfers and the wages associated with different 
persons in the potential reporting cascade in the RRE Rule, FinCEN 
anticipated that the rule's reporting costs may be between 
approximately $174.6 million and $466.5 million. In total, FinCEN 
estimated a PRA reporting and recordkeeping burden of up to 
approximately $630,976,662.47.
    Revised Estimate of Total Burden Cost: The supplemental reporting 
cost estimated in this notice is $45,324,233.33, which would increase 
the total PRA burden associated with Anti-Money Laundering Regulations 
for Residential Real Estate Transfers under OMB control number 1506-
0080 by approximately 7.2 percent from $630,976,662.47 to 
$676,300,895.80.

Request for Comments

    An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required 
to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid 
OMB control number. Comments submitted in response to this notice will 
be summarized and included in the request for OMB approval. All 
comments will become a matter of public record. Comments are invited 
on: (a) whether the collection of information is necessary for the 
proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether 
the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the 
agency's estimate of the burden of the collection of information; (c) 
ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to 
be collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of 
information on respondents, including through the use of technology; 
and (e) estimates of capital or start-up costs and costs of operation, 
maintenance, and purchase of services required to provide information.

(Authority: 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.)

Andrea M. Gacki,
Director, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Appendix--Real Estate Report Summary of Data Fields

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[FR Doc. 2024-26262 Filed 11-12-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4810-02-C`