Wells Real Estate Investment LLC Receivership: $56 Million Raised, $1,992,973.63 Cash Held on July 30, 2026

What this page is, and the rule it follows

Everything the SEC says about Wells is an allegation. The company and the two individuals who ran it consented to judgments without admitting or denying the complaint; the court did not try the facts. What is fact is the document record: what the SEC filed, what the court entered and what the receiver reports to the court every quarter. We name companies, agencies, courts and case numbers only.

The SEC says the offering was not registered with it, so there is no prospectus or periodic report to read; the primary documents are court papers. We read the complaint (ECF 1), the October 17, 2024 judgment against the company (ECF 71), the receiver's first, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth interim reports, the receiver's September 25, 2024 investor letter, SEC Litigation Release LR-26571 and the SEC's June 2026 complaint against one of the sales agents.

The case in dates

What the SEC says the notes were

The complaint says Wells sold promissory notes under an "Assets-to-Income Program" through a network of unregistered sales agents, in-house and independent, across the country. It says investors were told their money would be used to acquire, develop and revitalize properties, mainly in South Florida, and that the notes were collateralized and secured by real estate. The June 2026 complaint against a sales agent names the instrument: a "Memorandum of Indebtedness".

The complaint's own words are that Wells "has been operating a Ponzi scheme" and paying interest and principal on notes with other investors' money since at least 2020. That is the SEC's allegation. The consent judgments were entered without admission.

What the receiver holds, report by report

The receiver files an interim report about every three months. Cash on hand is the balance on the day he files.

In the 8th report's fund accounting for April 1 to June 30, 2026 the balance moved from $1,439,228.48 to $1,771,674.43. Money in was $479,532.41 of third-party litigation income plus $9.72 of interest (the income includes $185,000.00 from Hiscox Insurance Company Inc. and $140,000.00 from Giannotti Family Office, LLC). Money out was $147,096.18, of which $141,532.41 went to the receiver and other professionals and $4,895.20 to business operations. The report labels its ending balance "March 31, 2026" although the period ends June 30, 2026; we treat it as a typo.

The properties

The four sold properties with a stated price add up to $5,738,250 (our arithmetic), before mortgage payoffs and costs. The receiver does not report the net per sale in the text we read. He describes the loans as subprime hard-money mortgages, "all in default", leaving the estate owing "over $20 million". So most of any sale price goes to lenders first.

Money from third parties

The receiver says the main assets are the properties, and that he is chasing people and firms who received money from Wells.

A judgment is not a collection. The report does not say whether any of the defaults have been paid.

The claims process: what the documents say, and what they do not

Here is what the receiver has said, in order:

• September 25, 2024, to investors: "distributions to investors are indefinitely suspended", he cannot return investments, and funds he recovers "will be used to fund a future claims process and distribution for creditors".
• First report, October 30, 2024: he foresees a claims process "developed over time and submitted to the Court for approval".
• 5th report (October 2025): he was evaluating claims-administration vendors. 6th report (January 2026): he determined Stretto would be the most cost-effective.
• 7th report (April 30, 2026): he was finalizing the engagement terms.
• 8th report (July 30, 2026): Stretto accepted his terms and waived several fees; he "plans on filing a motion to engage Stretto and approve his proposed claims process plan". The report says individual investors "may also have claims for monetary damages" and that lenders and homeowners associations may have claims too.

The 8th report (July 30, 2026) says a claims process is planned but not yet open. No claim form, bar date or distribution percentage has been published in any document we read. A court has to approve the plan first.

If your notes were bought inside an IRA

The documents are thin here, and we want to be exact about it.

• What the SEC alleges: one sales agent "assisted investors in opening self-directed IRA accounts at a financial institution so that tax-deferred retirement account funds could be used to purchase the Notes" (the 2026 complaint, paragraph 32), and the main complaint says a substantial portion of the money raised came from retirement savings.
• What the receiver reports: nothing about IRAs. The reports contain no count of IRA-held notes and no rule for who files a claim when the custodian is the legal holder.
• What this means in practice: we found no document that says whether the receiver will treat the IRA custodian, the IRA owner or both as the claimant, or which records he will want. That is a question for his office, not something the filings answer. Public contact details are on his website: wellsreceiver@riveromestre.com or (305) 445-2500.
• Paper to keep: the note itself, the account statements, the custodian's account-opening and purchase documents, Forms 5498 and any correspondence with Wells or the sales agent. Our guides to Form 5498 values and self-directed IRA rules for real estate explain what a custodian does and reports.

What the SEC did in June 2026

On June 23, 2026 the SEC filed settled actions against two sales agents, and its release LR-26571 sets out the numbers.

Neither agent admitted the allegations. The SEC says the sales were made by people who were not registered as broker-dealers. The receiver has separate clawback suits against several sales-agent firms, described above.

What is not known

• How much of the $56 million investors will recover. No distribution amount, percentage or date has been published.
• Whether the 9th report, due about October 30, 2026, changes the cash figure. As of November 3, 2026 it was not on the receiver's website.
• The net proceeds of each property sale after lenders, and what the remaining two properties will fetch.
• How IRA-held notes will be handled in the claims process.
• Whether the $547,731.47 claim against Safe Life can be pursued through that company's bankruptcy.
• The SEC's June 2026 numbers come from the settled complaints; the final disgorgement for the second sales agent is not set.

What a reader can do with this

This page does not tell you what your notes are worth or whether you will be paid. Here is what the record supports.

1. Find the paper. The receiver's list of investors came from Wells's own books. Keep the note, every statement and every payment record, and note the year you stopped being paid.
2. Read the receiver's own page. His site posts every report, court document and investor letter: wellsrealestateinvestmentreceivership.com. The 9th report, when posted, will show the next cash figure and whether the Stretto motion was filed.
3. Expect a court-approved process. The reports say creditors and investors may file claims once a plan is approved; do not rely on a claim form from anyone else. Third parties sometimes offer to buy claims or to file them for a fee; we have no information about any such offer in this case.
4. Mind the paperwork. The custodian's year-end value on Form 5498 may not reflect a receivership. Ask your custodian what value it reports for the note and why.
5. Compare with other receiverships. Our page on the SQN Capital Management receiver shows a receiver order that waives the claim form for equity holders; the Wells reports say nothing like that yet. Our guide to real estate notes investing covers the unregistered-sales-agent pattern in this release. For custodians that handle illiquid assets see our SDIRA custodian guide.

FAQ

All figures are from primary documents read on November 3, 2026: the SEC complaint (ECF 1, docketed August 13, 2024); the judgment against the company (ECF 71, October 17, 2024); the receiver's investor letter of September 25, 2024 and his first (ECF 74), fifth (ECF 156), sixth (ECF 179), seventh (ECF 198) and eighth (ECF 219, July 30, 2026) interim status reports, all in No. 9:24-cv-80980 (Southern District of Florida) and posted on wellsrealestateinvestmentreceivership.com; SEC Litigation Release LR-26571 (June 24, 2026) and the SEC's complaint against the second sales agent (No. 1:26-cv-24369). The main complaint was a scanned image on the receiver's site; we read it by text recognition and checked each quoted figure against the page. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.