08/24/2026
REI LEGAL UPDATES:
The immediate change priorities are Missouri, Delaware, Louisiana, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. These require substantive guide or workflow changes.
Material legal watch — August 23, 2026
1. Missouri — urgent: effective August 28, 2026
Missouri’s SB 973 requires a wholesaler to provide a separate written disclosure at least 14 calendar days before signing a residential purchase contract. Both parties must sign and date it. Noncompliance can allow the seller to cancel before escrow closes and receive the wholesaler’s earnest money. Violations can also trigger private claims and Attorney General enforcement.
The act additionally regulates residential sale-leasebacks and changes some delinquent-tax and land-bank procedures.
Guide update: Add a mandatory pre-contract disclosure stage. Missouri wholesalers can no longer obtain a qualifying contract during the initial seller appointment. Add separate warnings for sale-leasebacks and tax-sale acquisitions.
2. Delaware — urgent: cancellation rules begin August 30, 2026
SB 201 was signed June 1.
Its requirements phase in:
August 30, 2026: Sellers receive a nonwaivable 21-calendar-day cancellation right, or until conveyance if sooner. If required disclosures are missing, cancellation is allowed anytime before conveyance.
Contracts must disclose the wholesaler’s intent, appraisal and independent-advice rights, and cancellation rights.
February 26, 2027: Conducting residential wholesaling “as a business” becomes licensed real-estate activity.
Coverage includes one-to-four-family property and qualifying residential lots.
Guide update: Separate occasional principal assignments from “wholesaling as a business.” Add the 21-day cancellation workflow immediately and flag the 2027 licensing deadline.
3. Louisiana — high: effective August 1, 2026
Act 807 now:
Defines regulated wholesaling to include assignments and certain double closings where the intermediary does not provide the purchase funds and lacks intent to occupy or materially improve the property.
Requires pre-contract written disclosures and a mandatory cancellation notice.
Gives the seller at least five calendar days to cancel without penalty.
Requires a deposit of at least 1% of the purchase price, held in a qualifying Louisiana escrow account.
Prohibits wholesalers from presenting themselves as the seller’s adviser and from recording documents intended to encumber or cloud title.
Makes noncompliance an unfair trade practice and permits regulatory penalties.
Guide update: Replace any Louisiana “assignment-only” treatment. Add double-close screening, the 1% deposit, five-day cancellation period, state cancellation form, escrow requirements, and prohibition against memoranda or other title-clouding instruments.
4. Connecticut — high: effective July 1, 2026
Residential wholesalers must now register with the Department of Consumer Protection. Both the individual signing wholesale contracts and the business entity may need registrations. The initial fee is $285.
The framework also requires the state disclosure report, gives sellers a three-business-day cancellation right, and generally prevents wholesale contracts from setting closings more than 90 days after ex*****on.
Guide update: Mark Connecticut as a registration-required state, not merely a disclosure state. Add credential verification, the official disclosure report, rescission tracking, and the 90-day closing limit.
5. Rhode Island — high: licensing starts January 1, 2027
New legislation treats facilitating, transferring, or assigning equitable interests for profit more than once in a 12-month period as licensed brokerage activity.
It also requires:
- Written disclosure to the seller before the wholesale contract.
- Written equitable-interest disclosure to the assignee.
- Three-business-day cancellation periods for sellers and assignment buyers.
- Expiration of the cancellation period before transfer or assignment.
- Freedom for the assignee to select its own closing attorney, settlement agent, and owner’s-title-policy provider.
- Potential civil liability of up to three times the wholesaler’s compensation.
Guide update: Mark Rhode Island as license-required at the statutory frequency threshold beginning January 1, 2027. Add separate seller and assignee disclosures and cancellation tracking.
6. Ohio — high: effective March 2, 2026
Ohio now requires a separate, conspicuous disclosure—boldface and at least 12-point type—before a wholesaler enters a binding contract involving residential property with one to four units.
Failure to provide it can allow the owner to cancel before escrow closes, obtain the wholesaler’s earnest money, and pursue consumer-protection remedies.
Guide update: Add the statutory standalone disclosure before contract ex*****on. Do not treat a disclosure buried in the purchase contract as sufficient.
Ohio Revised Code §5301.95
7. Federal/FinCEN — high, but currently favorable operationally
A federal court vacated FinCEN’s nationwide Residential Real Estate Reporting Rule on March 19, 2026. FinCEN and the Department of Justice have appealed.
While the order remains effective, settlement professionals are not required to file Real Estate Reports for covered non-financed residential transfers to entities or trusts and are not liable for failing to file.
Guide update: Change the guide from “reporting required” to “rule vacated; no current filing obligation; appeal pending.” Keep document-collection procedures available because the requirement could return following appeal.
Title-resolution changes
8. Rhode Island — new heirs-property partition law
Rhode Island enacted the Uniform Partition of Heirs’ Property Act. Beginning January 1, 2027, qualifying partition cases receive appraisal procedures, cotenant buyout opportunities, preference for partition in kind where appropriate, and structured open-market-sale protections.
Guide update: Add a separate heirs-property partition path; investors should not assume an ordinary forced-sale or auction procedure applies.
9. South Carolina — clearing heirs’ title no longer automatically triggers reassessment
The Heirs’ Property Tax Relief Act excludes qualifying transfers between family members undertaken to clear heirs-property title from being treated as assessable transfers. Affidavits must be submitted to the county assessor, and the relief applies to property-tax years beginning after 2025.
Guide update: Add the affidavit process and explain that qualifying family title-curative transfers and partitions can avoid immediate fair-market-value reassessment.
10. Virginia — stronger seller-identity and notarial controls
Effective July 1, 2026,
Virginia settlement agents recording land documents must obtain satisfactory evidence of the seller’s identity. Notaries must maintain records of notarial acts and document the identification used. Additional education and property-alert requirements begin July 1, 2027.
Guide update: Add heightened identity-verification and notary-journal requirements to Virginia’s closing and suspected-title-fraud procedures.
11. Tennessee — heirs-property exception changed
Effective July 1, 2026
Tennessee clarified that its Uniform Partition Heirs Property Act does not govern estate sales conducted to pay estate debts. The law also changes portions of the surviving-spouse elective-share calculation.
Guide update: Before applying the heirs-property partition workflow, determine whether the sale is being conducted by an estate to satisfy debts.
No pending proposal currently cleared your alert threshold. California AB 1850 is held in committee, Mississippi HB 1682 died in committee, and North Carolina HB 797 has not advanced from Senate Rules since 2025.
This is an informational compliance summary, not state-specific legal advice.
