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Interest rates on separate exchange accounts are currently in the toilet. So it’s not surprising that taxpayers who are doing 1031 exchanges are intrigued with Qualified Intermediaries that offer a high rate of interest on their exchange accounts. But how are they earning those rates? If you use them to do your exchange, what will they be investing your money in? Will you even know where your money is?

Most intermediaries commingle their client’s money. By commingle, I mean the pooling of all the clients’ exchange funds into one account. The benefit of pooled accounts is that the intermediary is investing a larger amount of money, and is therefore able to obtain a greater return. Just look in the business section of your Sunday paper: you’ll notice the difference in interest rates on $1,000 invested in a money market account versus $1 million invested in a CD.

...A 1031 exchange is a relatively short-term event, but losing your money could be forever...

After a recent Tax Court ruling that disallowed one taxpayer's 1031 exchange of his vacation (or "second") home, I've seen articles on this topic that range from "this was a bad ruling, so ignore it," to "the sky is falling and you can no longer 1031 vacation homes under any circumstance."

So can you exchange a vacation home? For those of you who are not familiar with this controversy, let me summarize the issue: Section 1031 allows the deferral of the gain from one investment property into another. Properties held strictly for personal enjoyment do not qualify. The question is, "Are vacation homes held for investment, or for personal enjoyment?” The Tax Court ruling clarified that vacation homes held strictly for personal enjoyment do not qualify. The trick then is to differentiate your property from purely personal enjoyment, and cast it, or document it, as investment property.

Structuring transfers of property for partnerships or limited liability companies without running afoul of the 1031 exchange rules can present problems. It's a common problem because you seldom can get all of the owners of a property to agree on the same course of action.

For example, Fred, George and Howie are equal partners in the FGH Partnership, which owns an office building they are under contract to sell. George and Howie want to sell the property, take their share of the proceeds and pay the tax. Fred, on the other hand, wants to do a 1031 exchange into a small apartment building he's found.

At the beginning of the year, Southwest Exchange out of Henderson, Nevada, filed for bankruptcy after losing $100 million of their clients’ money. And this spring, local intermediary IXG and its sister companies in the 1031 Tax Group went down when they were unable to account for $150 million in client funds.

Most intermediaries put all of their exchange funds into one account, called a “commingled” or a “pooled” account. For years I’ve been writing articles, warning about the potential problems inherent in commingling 1031 exchange funds. And for years I’ve been the piñata of the exchange industry. I’ve been threatened with lawsuits and have been told by other intermediaries to: 'shut up and quit needlessly scaring the public about commingled accounts...!'