IPX1031 Review 2026: Guarantee, Float and What FNF Reports

Who has owned IPX1031: four parents in nine years

Investment Property Exchange Services, Inc. is a California corporation, and its parent has changed more often than its name. Each Exhibit 21 below lists it as a subsidiary; the dates are the filing dates.

In February 2009 FNF gave LPS its 61% stake in a data business, FNRES, “in exchange for all of the outstanding shares of Investment Property Exchange Services, Inc.” (FNF's fiscal 2008 10-K). FNF puts the price of IPX at about $43.0 million. LPS, on the other side of the swap, valued IPX at $37.8 million, of which $32.6 million was cash, and FNRES at $66.6 million (10-Q for March 31, 2009). The two companies describe one deal with different values; neither figure is a measure of what IPX holds for exchangers.

What IPX1031 says about your money

IPX1031's website is the only place the bond, the guaranty and the insurance appear. We could not open ipx1031.com directly on October 10 because the site refused automated requests, so we read copies stored by the Internet Archive, dated in the table. They are the company's claims, not findings.

Three things stand out. First, the guaranty changed its description. In 2024 IPX called it a “third party corporate performance guarantee”; in 2026 it is a “Written Performance Guaranty” with no mention of who gives it. A guaranty from FNF would be a different thing from a guaranty from an insurer or surety, and none of the pages names the guarantor. Second, the bond's stated purpose is wider than the statute's. IPX writes that the bond is “there to satisfy the financial obligations of the company” in a company failure; the Washington statute described below requires a bond for dishonest acts. Third, nothing on the pages states the dollar value of the funds the bond and guaranty stand behind, which is the number that decides whether $100 million is large or small.

What FNF's filings say, and what they no longer say

FNF is the one part of this structure that reports to the SEC. Its 10-K does not give IPX a line; it gives the exchange business two measures, and they do not match.

Source: FNF Forms 10-K for fiscal 2023 (0001331875-24-000019), fiscal 2025 (0001331875-26-000026) and the earlier ones in the dataset. The 10-K describes the balances as “off-balance sheet customer funds used in the facilitation of tax-deferred property exchanges”; it does not say they are all held by IPX. In the first six months of 2026 the investment-note line was $58 million, the same as a year earlier (Form 10-Q, 0001331875-26-000073).

What the table shows, and what it does not:

• The float halved while fees doubled. Average balances fell 46.5% from 2022 to 2023 (our arithmetic) and the 10-K does not explain the fall. Fees still went from $106 million to $202 million, because fees as a share of the balance rose from 1.28% to 4.55% (our arithmetic).
• Two measures, one gap. For 2025 the fees sentence says $175 million and the investment note says $122 million. The filing does not reconcile them. One possible reading is that the gap reflects amounts paid out or credited, but FNF does not say so.
• FNF's disclosure got thinner. The 10-Ks for fiscal 2008 to 2011 name IPEX in the notes. After that, in the 10-Ks we read, the exchange business is absent until fiscal 2018, when “our tax-deferred property exchange business” appears as a driver of interest income. The fiscal 2025 10-K never uses “IPX”, “1031” or “like-kind”. Its only description is that net investment income “includes fees earned by holding customer funds in escrow (off-balance sheet) during facilitation of tax-deferred property exchanges.”
• No guarantee sentence. We found no passage in FNF's fiscal 2025 10-K or June 2026 10-Q saying FNF or any subsidiary guarantees exchange funds, or stating a contingent liability for them. Absence from a filing is not proof that a private guaranty does not exist, and it is the reason to ask for the document.

September 30, 2008: when a parent put its liability on the page

The most specific public statement about IPX's exposure was made when someone else owned it. In the 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2008, filed November 14, Lender Processing Services described IPX's business and what stood behind it:

LPS's 10-K for 2008 then reports an $8.7 million other-than-temporary impairment on the portfolio, and says LPS had a contingent liability “to fund the off-balance sheet portfolio, if required, to ensure that exchange transactions are completed for our customers.” After the February 2009 sale to FNF, LPS wrote that it “no longer” had “any commitments or contingencies related to IPEX's operations.”

Two points for today's reader. The 2008 guarantee was by name and in a public filing, and it left with LPS in February 2009; the 2026 guaranty is on a web page, unattributed in the copies we read. And the 2008 filing says plainly that banks gave the company “favorable arrangements” for holding deposits. FNF's current 10-K does not describe where its $4.6 billion average sits or who pays the fees, so the same question applies: ask which bank holds your funds and whether the bank pays IPX or its affiliates anything for the deposit.

What a $100 million bond can and cannot cover

The size of the book, not the headline amounts, is what matters. Against FNF's average figure for 2025:

Read the table with three cautions. FNF's figure is an average over a year, so a balance on a given day can be higher or lower. FNF does not say the figure is IPX alone. And bonds and guaranties are not additive claims on the same loss: a bond pays for a defined event, a guaranty backs a defined obligation, and the policy wording decides which applies. The number to ask for is the insuring clause, the paragraph stating what the bond pays for.

That is where the Washington statute is a useful yardstick. RCW 19.310.040 requires an exchange facilitator to maintain “a fidelity bond or bonds in an amount of not less than one million dollars” for the benefit of a client that suffers a direct financial loss “as a result of the exchange facilitator's covered dishonest act”, or to deposit all exchange funds in a qualified escrow account or trust. RCW 19.310.010 defines a covered dishonest act as “a crime involving fraud, embezzlement, misappropriation of funds, robbery, or other theft of property”. RCW 19.310.060 requires errors and omissions cover of at least $250,000. The statute covers a facilitator that handles an exchange of relinquished property located in Washington, or that keeps an office there to solicit exchange business (RCW 19.310.010(4)); a qualified intermediary holding funds from property outside the state is excluded from the definition. IPX's claimed amounts are 100 times and 120 times those floors (our arithmetic). The statute also makes facilitators post a notice that “Exchange facilitation services are not regulated by any agency of the state of Washington or of the United States government”, and sets a prudent investor standard for the funds, “liquidity and preservation of principal” (RCW 19.310.080).

On the federal side, the Treasury regulation that defines a qualified intermediary, 26 CFR 1.1031(k)-1(g)(4), requires a person who is not the taxpayer or a disqualified person and who “enters into a written agreement with the taxpayer”. We read the regulation text for a bond, insurance or segregation requirement and found none (our reading). Interest is addressed only to say the taxpayer's entitlement to it does not by itself create constructive receipt if the agreement limits the taxpayer's rights, under (g)(5); it does not say who keeps the rest. The bond, the guaranty and where the money sits are all contract terms.

Two failures show why the insuring clause matters:

• 1031 Tax Group (fraud). In a January 6, 2009 Justice Department release, a former chief operating officer of an affiliate pleaded guilty, admitting that the qualified intermediary “falsely represented that it would hold client funds solely to complete the clients' 1031 exchanges” and that about $132 million of client funds was misappropriated. A bond for dishonest acts is built for this kind of loss.
• LandAmerica 1031 Exchange Services (illiquidity). The 10-Q of LandAmerica Financial Group for September 30, 2008 says about $290.5 million of its exchange funds were in auction rate securities that had stopped trading, and on November 26, 2008 LandAmerica and its 1031 subsidiary filed Chapter 11. Nobody in that record is reported to have stolen the money; it was locked in securities. Whether a dishonesty bond would have paid is exactly what an insuring clause tells you (our reading).

FNF and the LandAmerica case

FNF has a second connection to 2008. In the merger agreement it signed with LandAmerica that year, a Fidelity subsidiary agreed to provide a $30.0 million stand-by credit facility for LandAmerica's 1031 company, secured by auction rate securities, “for the benefit of customers of that subsidiary” (LandAmerica 10-Q). LandAmerica's 1031 subsidiary filed Chapter 11 on November 26, 2008 (Form 8-K). FNF's 10-K for 2011 refers to “the entities FNF purchased” from LandAmerica Financial Group, which include the two defendants below.

On November 24, 2010, plaintiffs filed the Hays purported class action in the Northern District of California against two of those subsidiaries, Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company and Lawyers Title Insurance Corporation, on behalf of people who deposited exchange funds with LandAmerica's 1031 company. They alleged the subsidiaries knew of its problems and did not disclose them. The LES liquidation trust's own settlement papers, as FNF described them in its 10-K for 2011, asserted total losses of more than $300 million and said more than $200 million had been paid to claimants; FNF said $74 million of losses and fees would remain unpaid even if a Lloyd's settlement was approved.

FNF's 10-Q for June 30, 2012 reports that on March 29, 2012 the parties signed a settlement under which the FNF-affiliated companies would pay $11.0 million, of which $3.2 million would come from Lloyd's underwriters, leaving $7.8 million for FNF's side (our arithmetic). Preliminary approval was granted on July 6, 2012, and the parties asked for a final fairness hearing on November 12, 2012. We did not find a later FNF filing reporting the final approval, and the matter disappears from the 10-Q for September 30, 2012. IPX is not described as a defendant in any of these passages; the allegations were against title insurance subsidiaries. This corrects our comparison of 1031 exchange companies, which says later filings report no outcome.

The Fidelity family and your closing

IPX's fact sheet says it is “a member of the Fidelity National Financial family of companies” alongside “Fidelity National Title, Chicago Title, Commonwealth Land Title, Alamo Title and National Title Insurance of New York”. In practice, the title or escrow officer closing your sale may belong to the same group as the exchange company they suggest.

That is not a legal problem in itself. The regulation says routine “title insurance, escrow, or trust services for the taxpayer by a financial institution, title insurance company, or escrow company” are not counted in deciding whether someone is the taxpayer's agent and so a disqualified person (26 CFR 1.1031(k)-1(k)(2)) (our reading). It is a reason to ask for a second quote. Washington's statute requires an exchange facilitator to disclose a financial interest before recommending another business (RCW 19.310.040); it puts the duty on the facilitator, not on the title officer who recommends the facilitator. You can ask the title officer the same question in writing: do you or your employer receive anything for referring IPX?

Is IPX1031 safe? What the record supports

What the record supports, as of October 10, 2026:

• IPX has a public parent that files with the SEC and reported $175 million of fees on exchange funds for 2025; IPX's own Safety page says being part of a public company brings audits and transparency.
• IPX claims amounts of cover well above the $1 million bond minimum in Washington's RCW 19.310.040 (a comparison of IPX's own claim with the statute, our reading).
• We found no court or regulator action against IPX in the sources we read (SEC filings and web searches; we did not search state court dockets).
• In 2008, when exchange companies failed, IPX's then-parent reported a guarantee and a portfolio with no auction rate securities.

What it does not support:

• It does not show who gives the $50 million guaranty, whether FNF stands behind it, or whether the bond pays on a company failure.
• It does not show how much of FNF's $4.6 billion is IPX's, where it is held, or why the investment note's figure is $53 million lower than the fees sentence.
• The 2008 statement was made under a different owner. FNF's current 10-K says nothing comparable.

Our verdict: the public record neither shows a problem at IPX nor lets a reader confirm the protection IPX advertises. Both gaps close with documents the company can send you, so ask for them before you sign the exchange agreement. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.

What a reader can do with this

Put these to IPX in writing, and compare the answers with another qualified intermediary:

• Who gives the performance guaranty? Ask for the document and the guarantor's name. If it is FNF, ask whether it is signed by FNF or by IPX.
• Copy of the fidelity bond and its insuring clause. Does it pay for a company failure or only for dishonest acts of employees? Who is the insurer, and is your exchange covered by name?
• Which bank holds your funds, in what kind of account, and is the account in your name or taxpayer number, as the Safety page said in 2024? Does the bank pay IPX or an affiliate for the deposit?
• What rate will you be paid? FNF's own numbers imply about 3.8% earned on the float in 2025 (our arithmetic). Our qualified intermediary guide explains why the exchange agreement, not the regulation, decides who keeps interest.
• What are the investments? Ask for the policy in writing; in 2008 the answer was short-term, high-grade investments with no auction rate securities, and that is the wording to ask for again.
• Who authorizes withdrawals? IPX says dual authorization and a separate Banking Division; ask whether you also sign.
• If the property is in Washington, ask for the notice and evidence of the bond and insurance that RCW 19.310.040 and 19.310.060 require before you sign.
• If the replacement is a DST or you may need a reverse exchange, see our DST fee analysis and reverse 1031 exchange guide; the deadlines are in our 1031 exchange rules.

FAQ

Sources, read and saved on October 10, 2026: SEC EDGAR filings of Fidelity National Financial, CIK 1331875 (Forms 10-K 0000950144-09-001785, 0000950123-10-019326, 0000950123-11-017206, 0001331875-12-000018, 0001331875-13-000012 to 0001331875-26-000026 for fiscal 2012 to 2025, Form 10-K/A 0001104659-22-054079, Forms 10-Q 0001331875-12-000033, 0001331875-12-000047, 0001331875-12-000057 and 0001331875-26-000073); the earlier FNF (CIK 809398) Exhibit 21 filings 0001095811-01-001837, 0000892569-02-000608 and 0000892569-03-000704; Fidelity National Information Services Exhibit 21 filings 0000950137-04-007368, 0000950134-06-005253 and 0000892569-07-000185; Lender Processing Services, CIK 1429775 (Forms 10-Q 0000892569-08-001124, 0000950134-08-020559 and 0000950144-09-004260; Form 10-K 0000950144-09-002282); LandAmerica Financial Group, CIK 877355 (Form 10-Q 0001002105-08-000361; Form 8-K 0001002105-08-000407); the Justice Department release of January 6, 2009; the Revised Code of Washington chapter 19.310 (app.leg.wa.gov); 26 CFR 1.1031(k)-1 (eCFR, version of October 1, 2026); and Internet Archive copies of ipx1031.com pages (home October 3, 2026; Essentials May 25, 2026; FAQ March 10, 2026; Locations January 30, 2025; About May 19, 2024; Safety & Security April 14, 2024) and IPX's FNF fact sheet. Website statements are IPX1031's own claims. Our arithmetic is shown in the dataset.