Residential
ALTA Pushes to Narrow FinCEN Rule as Seller Fraud Attempts Double
By Real Estate Wire Staff, . Real Estate Wire.
Seller impersonation fraud attempts reached 59 percent of title firms in the most recent calendar year surveyed, up from 28 percent in ALTA's 2024 survey, according to an American Land Title Association Newsroom interview with ALTA CEO Chris Morton published ahead of the ALTA ONE conference. The figures come from ALTA's Seller Impersonation Fraud study, sponsored by CertifID.
The dollar exposure behind those attempts is not abstract. Morton put the average fraud and forgery claim at more than $143,000 overall, and more than $207,000 on a refinancing transaction. "That's a massive number for a homeowner to shoulder, or a lender," he said. "People then are looking at losing their home, which is why I talk about sustainability."
On the regulatory front, ALTA's position on FinCEN's residential real estate rule, which requires title agencies to collect and report beneficial ownership information on all-cash transactions as an anti-money-laundering measure, is that the goal is sound but the implementation is too broad. Morton said a survey ALTA conducted while the rule was in effect found significant compliance burden on smaller title companies and consumer reluctance to share personal data. ALTA has filed an amicus brief in Fidelity National Financial's legal challenge against the rule, using that survey data to support the case.
Morton's concern is that winning in court may not be enough. "My concern is... even if this court case wins on the title side, that [FinCEN] comes back and does something broader and more intrusive," he said. ALTA's preferred outcome is a substantially narrowed rule that delivers the most relevant data to FinCEN without requiring title agencies to report information already available from public sources.
On unregulated alternatives to title insurance, particularly attorney opinion letters and products offered by government-sponsored enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ALTA is backing the Protecting America's Property Rights Act, which has been introduced in the House with several dozen bipartisan co-sponsors. A Senate companion bill is in development, and Morton said ALTA is looking for opportunities to attach the legislation to a larger vehicle. The bill would require any product that claims to cover the same risks as title insurance to comply with the same state consumer protection laws.
Morton framed the affordability argument directly: waiving title insurance or substituting a less comprehensive product may appear to reduce closing costs, but it shifts what he described as a potentially six-figure risk onto the homeowner, the lender, or the broader housing finance system. "When you remove those protections, you don't eliminate risk; you just shift it somewhere else," he said.
On artificial intelligence, Morton said ALTA's position is that the technology should complement rather than replace title professionals. The organization's view is that automation handles routine, predictable tasks and frees up professionals to apply judgment where it is needed. "AI can help in creating efficiencies and time and space so that title professionals can better use their higher level expertise and judgment on items that can't be automated," Morton said. ALTA has not taken a formal policy position on AI guardrails, though Morton indicated the organization takes the risk-reward question seriously.
Morton has been ALTA's CEO since June 2025. He told The Title Report his primary focus since taking the role has been ensuring that policymakers and consumers understand what title professionals actually do in a transaction, a message he said is central to every one of the organization's three advocacy priorities: fraud, unregulated alternatives and affordability.
The harder question the interview does not fully resolve is timing. The FinCEN litigation, the Protecting America's Property Rights Act and the AI policy conversation are all in motion simultaneously, and the outcome of any one of them could reshape the others. Whether ALTA's strategy of pursuing a narrowed rule while the court case proceeds gives it more leverage or less is not yet clear from what Morton described.