The Fourth Amendment protects against warrantless “searches and seizures,” including personal and business financial records.
But expansion of federal anti-money-laundering reporting requirements under the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) blatantly violates that protection—treating an estimated 800,000+ annual all-cash real estate purchases by LLCs and trusts as inherently suspicious.
Luckily, a brave entrepreneur decided to fight back. In March 2026, a federal court sided with Pacific Legal Foundation client Celia Flowers and her company, Flowers Title, striking down the rule—but FinCEN and the Treasury Department are refusing to budge.
PLF’s new research brief, FinCEN’s Financial Surveillance of Real Estate Transactions, finds that FinCEN’s surveillance requirements impose staggering compliance costs on title companies—while the enforcement cases FinCEN cited as justification for its dragnet approach amount to just 0.00014% of qualifying transactions.
On Thursday, November 5, co-authors of the brief, PLF strategic research manager Mitchell Scacchi and PLF senior attorney Luke Wake—lead counsel in the Flowers Title case—will host a virtual discussion detailing their findings, exposing the flaws in FinCEN’s claimed authority, and highlighting ongoing litigation aimed at reining in the agency’s overreach.
Note: A recording of the discussion will be circulated to all registrants, so feel free to RSVP even if you can’t make it live.
