Equity Trust Company Review: $73 Billion in Custody (June 30, 2026) and What Courts Held on Fraud Losses

Why this review exists

“Equity Trust company reviews” is mostly answered by star ratings and the company's own pages. What those leave out is the paper record: who charters it, how big it has grown, what the SEC and the courts decided when clients lost money in frauds that ran through its accounts, and what its fee schedule says today. We read those documents. We have no affiliate relationship with Equity Trust and earn nothing if you open an account. If you are choosing between custodians for real estate or private notes, our SDIRA custodian comparison sets Equity Trust beside Forge Trust, IRA Financial and others; the figures here are later and are taken from the company's own dated schedules. For the tax rules around holding real estate in an IRA see our self-directed IRA real estate rules.

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. Court records describe disputes, which by nature involve accounts that went wrong; they are not a count of the roughly 368,000 accounts that did not end in court.

1. What Equity Trust is, legally

Equity Trust is not a bank and not an SEC registrant. The company's regulatory page says: “We are regulated as a South Dakota trust company and comply with all statutes and regulations mandated by the South Dakota Division of Banking.” It adds that its “financial statements are audited annually by an independent certified public accountant.” The Division's own list of trust companies chartered to do business in South Dakota “as of October 2026” carries the entry we looked for.

Two points matter to a holder. First, a state trust charter is not deposit insurance: the Commission's 2017 opinion describes Equity Trust as a “state-chartered non-depository trust company,” and we found no document in which the company claims FDIC coverage of IRA assets. Second, the examination findings above cover 2009 to 2011; we did not find a later published examination report, so we cannot tell you what the Division has found since.

2. How big it has grown

The SEC record gives a dated history that the company's marketing does not. The measures differ (accounts “under management” in 2007, “holdings” in 2009 to 2013, “assets under custody and administration” in 2024 and 2026), so read the trend, not the decimals.

On these figures the average account held about $67,700 at the end of 2009 and about $198,400 on June 30, 2026 (our arithmetic: $8.7 billion over 128,442 accounts, and $73 billion over 368,000). The jump from 38,434 to 128,442 accounts between mid-2007 and the end of 2009 includes the purchase of accounts from Sterling Trust Company of Waco, Texas. The seller's April 13, 2009 investor presentation put the price of the assets at $61.2 million and described Equity Trust as “Family owned.”

3. Ownership and history

We found no primary document that names Equity Trust's owners today. What the records do show:

• 2003: the SEC judge wrote that Equity Trust “came into being in 2003 when it assumed the SDIRA accounts of a predecessor, Mid-Ohio Securities Corp.,” a broker-dealer. In 2003 the SEC settled with Mid-Ohio over customer protection, net capital and recordkeeping rules in its IRA custodian business: a cease-and-desist order, a censure and a $25,000 civil penalty. That order was against the predecessor, not Equity Trust.
• 2009: purchase of Sterling Trust Company assets (above). The company's own timeline dates the start of what it now calls Equity Institutional to this deal.
• 2014: global headquarters opened in Westlake, Ohio. 2015: accounts acquired from Principal Trust Company and American Pension Services.
• August 7, 2023: acquisition of Midland Trust of Fort Myers, Florida, announced on the company's site.

If ownership matters to you (it affects who stands behind a custodian that holds your title), ask the company in writing, and check the South Dakota Division of Banking for any change-of-control filings.

4. The SEC case: charged in 2015, dismissed in 2016 and 2017

On June 16, 2015 the SEC instituted a cease-and-desist proceeding (File No. 3-16594, Release No. 33-9807) alleging that Equity Trust was a cause of offering frauds by two promoters of promissory notes. The order alleged that “Equity Trust ignored numerous red flags,” appeared at the promoters' events and sponsored dinners, and kept charging annual fees on one promoter's notes “as recently as 2015.” These were allegations, and the case went to a hearing before an administrative law judge.

What happened to the clients' money (Commission opinion): from April 2008 to December 2009, 81 Equity Trust clients made 94 investments totalling $5.3 million in the first promoter's notes, and “ETC's clients experienced almost a total loss of their investments.” From January 2007 to May 2011, 34 clients invested $984,998 in 41 notes of the second promoter, who repaid only $341,513 (about 35%, our arithmetic) and left “a complete loss on 33 notes.” Both promoters were convicted and are incarcerated.

What the judge and the Commission decided. The administrative law judge's Initial Decision No. 1030 of June 27, 2016 ordered that the proceeding “IS DISMISSED.” The Division of Enforcement appealed on July 18, 2016. On September 28, 2017 the Commission dismissed it too, holding that “the Division has not carried its burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that ETC knew or should have known that its conduct would contribute to the promoters' frauds.” Three passages are worth reading closely:

• The Commission said it did not decide “solely because ETC disclaimed a duty to investigate the legitimacy of its clients' investments in their custodial agreements.”
• It added that “An SDIRA custodian, like any person or entity not registered with the Commission, may become subject to heightened duties by virtue of its conduct,” but found the Division had not established that Equity Trust's actions did that.
• It recorded that the custodian's own review found by October 2009 that some notes described as secured were either unsecured or lacked documents showing they were secured, that it put the first promoter's notes on a “do not process” list in January 2010, and that it still processed requests to extend, renew or convert 18 overdue notes from February 2010 because otherwise they would be distributed in kind and could cause clients “adverse tax consequences.”

So the SEC record is two-sided. It documents large client losses and conduct the Division called negligent, and it also records a regulator's finding that the custodian was not shown to have breached the standard of a “reasonably prudent passive custodian.” Neither side's headline is the whole story.

5. The court record: what judges said a self-directed custodian owes you

We read three appellate opinions that name Equity Trust as a defendant. We do not name the individual plaintiffs.

Fiduciary duty: none, where the contract says so. The Ohio court in 2012 quoted the account application: “[Equity Trust] [is] acting solely as a passive custodian to hold IRA assets and we have no discretion to direct any investment in your IRA. Accordingly, we are not a fiduciary.” It held that the “unambiguous terms of the application support the conclusion that no fiduciary relationship existed.” The 2007 panel said it found “no Ohio law to support” a custodian fiduciary relationship “except where the fiduciary relationship is established by contract or statute.” The investor's public-policy argument that a custodian should not be allowed to disclaim by contract was not considered in 2012 because it had not been raised in the trial court.

A securities claim needs proof of a security. In the 2012 case the investor argued Equity Trust had aided the sale of an unregistered security. The court held that no instrument was in the record: “there is no evidence that any such note exists,” so “Equity Trust could not be liable for aiding or participating in the sale of an unregistered security.”

The Texas jury and the appeal. The Austin court described Equity Trust as a “passive custodian” that “does not perform any due diligence or provide any investment advice,” and recorded the investor's testimony that an Equity Trust employee confirmed to her and her husband that many of the promoter's clients invested through Equity Trust. The jury found Equity Trust liable for aiding and abetting under both the Texas Securities Act and common law, at 15% of the damages. The trial court set aside the statutory verdict and kept the common-law one. The court of appeals reversed: “we conclude that a common-law cause of action for aiding and abetting does not exist in Texas.” It affirmed the judgment for Equity Trust on the statutory claim on the ground of limitations, because the investor had not challenged that ground in her opening brief. The opinion says the other plaintiffs in the suit “settled with Equity Trust”; it does not give terms, and we did not find them. Notably, that opinion does not decide whether a custodian owes a duty to check investments. It decides that Texas offers no common-law aiding-and-abetting claim.

Reading the cases together (not legal advice). Where the account agreement disclaims investment advice and says the custodian is passive, these courts enforced it. The SEC's 2017 opinion adds that conduct beyond passive custody, such as heavy promotion of a promoter's offering, could in principle create heightened duties, but it did not find that here. Our other review of this kind of dispute is the fee-and-court record in Kennedy Funding's cases; the common thread is that paper signed before money moves decides who bears the loss.

Newer federal filings, 2026

Justia's federal docket index lists 100 cases with “Equity Trust Company” as a party name (read November 9, 2026; the index shows only the 10 most recent without an account). Of those 10, seven name Equity Trust itself, as custodian or as a party. We list court, number, filing date and the kind of case only; none has a ruling we have read, and a filing is an allegation, not a finding.

Most of these are the custodian acting for an IRA that owns a property or a loan, which is routine for a self-directed custodian. The two Los Angeles fraud cases and the Florida contract case are the ones to watch for a ruling on what the custodian owed.

6. What it charges

Equity Trust publishes two schedules. Its fee page describes the “Legacy Retail Client Fee Schedule” as applying to “Retail accounts opened prior to August 2024 that are not managed by a financial advisor or other professional.” The Universal IRA schedule (document FS-0001-01, Rev. 110625) is the other. Both say fees are effective January to January of a calendar year and subject to change, and that maintenance fees are not prorated.

Other items on the Universal schedule: set-up $50 online or $75 on paper; Gold Level Service Membership $249 a year; full termination $250; partial termination and each distribution or re-registration of an asset $100 per asset; wire $30; late fee $50; miscellaneous activity requests $75 an hour; digital currency purchases 2.0% of the purchase. The Universal IRA schedule says alternative asset buys, sells and custody are included.

Worked examples (our arithmetic). A $40,000 account pays $350 a year on the Universal schedule, 0.88% of the balance. A $100,000 account pays $750 (0.75%). A $1,000,000 account pays $2,500 (0.25%). Closing a $100,000 account that holds two private notes would cost the $250 termination fee plus $100 for each asset distributed or re-registered, $450 in all, before any wire. The Commission's 2017 record notes that most clients then paid between $300 and $400 a year and that the CEO testified Equity Trust “could not charge such low fees if it was required to do extensive due diligence on hard-to-value assets.” That is the economic bargain in plain words: a low flat fee in exchange for no review.

7. What a reader can do with this

• Read your own agreement, not the marketing. The court-tested sentences are the ones where the custodian says it is passive, is not a fiduciary and has “no obligation or duty to investigate, analyze, monitor, verify title to, or otherwise evaluate” your investment. Find them in your adoption agreement and each direction-of-investment form.
• Treat due diligence as yours. The SEC record shows a promoter who steered clients to open accounts and gave them pre-filled paperwork. Before you direct money to a note or LLC, verify the issuer, the security (is there a recorded mortgage or a signed note?) and who signs for the IRA. In the 2012 Ohio case, the document that was missing was the note itself.
• Check what comes back after the money moves. The Ohio account holder learned of the problem from a foreclosure. Ask for the executed note or title in your name as custodian, and read each quarterly statement for the asset's status (the SEC record shows “secured” notes relabelled “unsecured” on statements).
• Know your fee schedule. If your account was opened before August 2024 you may be on the legacy schedule; ask which one applies and compare it with the table above at your balance. The schedules say fees are effective January to January and subject to change.
• If a note or LLC in your IRA is in trouble, a lawyer can tell you what limitation periods apply. The Texas decision turned on limitations for the statutory claim, and the SEC case ran 2015 to 2017.
• Compare custodians for your platform in our custodian comparison, and see the crowdfunding IRA guide if you are deciding whether an IRA is the right wrapper at all.

Sources: SEC Release No. 33-9807 (order instituting proceedings, June 16, 2015) and Release No. 33-10420 (opinion and order dismissing proceedings, September 28, 2017), File No. 3-16594; SEC Initial Decision Release No. 1030, June 27, 2016; Division of Enforcement petition for review in File No. 3-16594; Ohio Court of Appeals, Ninth District, No. 06CA008913 (June 29, 2007) and No. 11CA009993 (March 5, 2012); Texas Court of Appeals, Third District, No. 03-19-00401-CV (July 23, 2020); South Dakota Division of Banking, Trust Companies Chartered to Do Business in South Dakota as of October 2026; United Western Bancorp investor presentation of April 13, 2009 (Form 8-K exhibit 99.1); Equity Trust Company regulatory oversight, Who We Are and fee pages and press releases of August 7, 2023 and May 29, 2024; Equity Trust fee schedules FS-0001-01 (Rev. 110625) and FS-0001-03 (Rev. 081726). All retrieved or read on November 9, 2026.