Qualified Intermediary
1031 CORP.
1031 CORP.
- FEA membership
- FEA member
- CES® holders
- CES® on staff; names not published on cited pages
- Fidelity bond
- Not published on cited pages
- E&O / other cover
- Firm states multi-million-dollar fidelity bond and professional liability coverage; specific limits are not published on the current about page and are omitted here.
- How funds are held
- Segregated
- Dual-signature wires
- Dual-signature
- Reverse / improvement / DST
- Reverse Yes · Improvement Yes · DST Yes
- Last sourced
- 2026-09-05
Published coverage notes
Firm states multi-million-dollar fidelity bond and professional liability coverage; specific limits are not published on the current about page and are omitted here.
Fund handling
Segregated FDIC-insured account for each exchange, titled with the client’s name and taxpayer identification number. Clients can view the account on the bank’s website. For balances above the FDIC $250,000 limit, the firm says it uses Insured Cash Sweep (ICS) across multiple banks. A Qualified Escrow Agreement is available when requested. Disbursements use e-sign authorizations; the firm also describes dual internal approvals and callback verification for wires.
Who keeps the float
Clients receive monthly bank statements and an annual 1099-INT directly from the bank. That implies interest is recognized at the client level when the account earns it; the firm does not publish a split of who keeps the float.
Who it is for
Nationwide QI since 1991. Independently owned since 2010 after earlier periods inside T.A. Title and then First American Title. Sibling Reverse 1031 CORP. handles reverse work. The firm’s 2024 year-in-review states it completed improvement exchanges and that DST transactions were 19.9% of its exchanges that year. A DST interest is a securities offering; 1031 CORP.’s published role is Qualified Intermediary, not DST sponsor.
Verdict
This is one of the few national QIs that is not sitting inside a public title or fund-admin parent. The custody file is specific: per-exchange TIN accounts, bank-portal visibility, optional QEA, ICS for large balances. ‘Multi-million-dollar’ bond language without a number is weaker than IPX or Accruit — ask for the declarations. Independent ownership removes a parent guaranty; it also removes a parent bankruptcy that can reach across a title family. Pick the tradeoff on purpose.
Notes
1031 CORP. started in 1991, was sold with T.A. Title into First American Title in 2004, and was bought back in 2010 by longtime employees including Margo McDonnell and Sue Umstead with founder J. William Cotter, Jr. In early 2026 McDonnell purchased Cotter’s remaining shares.
The firm’s LinkedIn page states that members of its leadership have served on the FEA board nearly continuously since 1997. That is treated here as FEA membership with a secondary source; confirm on 1031.org’s locator before relying on it for a live file.
The 2024 year-in-review (fetched 2026-09-05) reports DST transactions at 19.9% of the firm’s exchanges and an increase in improvement exchanges. A later firm post tells readers to work with 1031 CORP. as QI and to use DST brokers for the securities side. That split — QI custody vs. DST offering — is the point of QI and DST.