This is not legal, investment, nor tax advice. Seek the counsel of a qualified attorney, investment advisor and / or accountant.
© 2026 1031 Specialists. All rights reserved.
For CPAs, Enrolled Agents & Tax Professionals
You can't serve as your client's qualified intermediary — the IRS disqualifies anyone who has acted as their accountant in the past two years. But you're the one who signs the return. We run the exchange, keep you in the loop from contract to closing, and hand your client a Success Package that turns Form 8824 into a fill-in exercise. We don't prepare returns, we don't sell replacement property, and we never compete for your client.
Why It Matters
Treasury Regulation §1.1031(k)-1(k) treats anyone who has acted as the taxpayer's accountant within the two years before the sale as a disqualified person. So the exchange itself is run by someone else — but the reporting, the carryover basis, the recapture math, and the client's questions all land with you at tax time.
Exchanges rarely fail on your watch. They fail in the 45 days after closing, in a phone call you weren't on, and you find out in March. The intermediary your client uses is the single biggest variable in whether the return you file is a clean deferral or a cleanup.
Where Exchanges Go Wrong
None of them are exotic. All of them are preventable, and every one of them ends up in your office.
Replacement property must be identified in writing, signed, and delivered within 45 days, under the three-property or 200% rule. Nobody calls the CPA on day 44.
The exchange period ends on day 180 or the due date of the return, including extensions — whichever comes first. A late-year sale can lose weeks unless someone files the extension.
Two closing statements, an identification letter, a ledger of funds, an interest figure — if the client kept them. Boot, mortgage relief, and exchange expenses all get rebuilt from scraps.
Telling a client to "use an intermediary" isn't the same as knowing the exchange was done right — and your name is on the referral.
The Calendar
Everything before the closing can still be structured. Everything after it runs on dates that don't move. This is the calendar we keep for your client — and, if they want you in the loop, for you.
If the client can touch the proceeds — even for an afternoon — the exchange is gone. The exchange agreement has to be signed and the funds routed to us before the sale closes.
For a sale late in the year, the return due date can arrive before day 180. Extend the return and the full exchange period is preserved. Don't, and it ends on the due date.
A failed exchange that straddles two tax years may qualify for installment reporting under Reg. §1.1031(k)-1(j)(2). That's a conversation to have in December, not April.
The Success Package
Every 1031 Specialists client receives a Success Package when the exchange completes — the closing binder that documents the exchange from agreement to acquisition. Every figure the return asks for is in one place, labelled, delivered when the exchange completes — not requested in April. The tax calls, from basis to recapture, stay with you.
The executed exchange agreement and the assignment of the sale contract to us — proof the structure was in place before closing.
The signed notice as delivered, with its receipt date, so the identification date is documented rather than remembered.
Relinquished and replacement, side by side — prices, debt paid off and assumed, and the transactional costs on each.
Proceeds received, every disbursement, any cash returned to the client, and interest earned on the funds.
The key dates, both prices, debt paid off and taken on, and funds in and out — the figures Form 8824 asks for, on a single page.
Notes on anything that follows the property: related-party two-year monitoring, and state filings such as California's FTB 3840 where they apply.
Tools You Can Use Today
Every one is on our site, free, with no account to create. Run the numbers with a client in the room, or send the link before they call you.
Enter the Part I dates and descriptions and the closing figures, and it lays out Part III line by line — boot, realized gain, deferred gain, new basis — as a PDF. Recapture on line 21 is flagged for your judgment, not ours.
Open the worksheet →Enter the closing date for day 45 and day 180 — plus a warning when the return due date cuts the exchange period short. Both dates export to your calendar.
Track the dates →Estimates depreciation from the land share and 27.5- or 39-year recovery when the schedule isn't handy, then shows recapture tax, total tax, and what an exchange would defer.
Run recapture →For the client who wants some cash out: models cash and mortgage boot against the replacement and shows the taxable portion, with federal, recapture, NIIT, and state rates broken out.
Model the boot →Checks a replacement list against the three-property, 200%, and 95% rules, counts the days remaining to 45 and 180, and drafts the identification letter.
Validate a list →Itemizes recapture, capital gains, NIIT, and state tax on a straight sale, then projects the long-term difference of exchanging — the side-by-side clients ask for.
Compare →How much new debt — or added cash — the replacement purchase needs so that paying off the old mortgage doesn't become taxable boot.
Check the debt →The downloadable Excel model: both properties, both mortgages, federal and state rates and NIIT, with deferred tax, taxable boot, and replacement basis.
Get the model →A five-category self-assessment of wire controls, scored from strong to high risk, with prioritized fixes. Nothing entered is stored or sent anywhere.
Take the checklist →Due Diligence You Can Put in the File
Only a handful of states license qualified intermediaries, and there is no federal regulator. When LandAmerica's exchange unit failed in 2008, clients whose funds had been pooled were treated as unsecured creditors. How the money is held decides who gets it back.
Each client's proceeds sit in their own FDIC-insured trust account — never commingled with other clients' funds or ours.
Your client's written instruction, a verification call, and written authorization from two 1031 Specialists — before any funds leave the account.
Errors-and-omissions coverage, with deposit insurance above the $250,000 FDIC limit available on request.
Institutional Backing
A 1031 exchange sits on the seam between tax and real estate. Our education is built inside both — the organization that trains and licenses the professionals your client will meet on the property side, and the association that governs them.
We are the only Qualified Intermediary in the country ever invited to join REACH, a scale-up incubator / investment fund inside the National Association of Realtors.
“With the backing of REACH, 1031 Specialists will help more agents and brokers demystify the 1031 exchange process, deliver more value to their clients, and ultimately win more business.”Bob Gillespie, Managing Partner at REACH Commercial
Kaplan is where American real estate professionals get licensed and stay licensed. We worked with Kaplan to build and deliver 1031 exchange coursework.
“1031 Specialists is redefining how investors manage 1031 exchanges — using automation and precision tech to make complex transactions simple, transparent, and scalable.”NAR Tech and Innovation
Coursework built to continuing-education standards rather than assembled as sales collateral. Credit will be listed on each course once approved.
Written and delivered by a team with 31,000+ completed exchanges and 250+ combined years in the chair. Bring live client situations and get live answers.
We are a qualified intermediary — not a sponsor, not a broker-dealer, not a CPA firm. No product to place and no return to prepare, so the education has no thumb on the scale.
Next Step
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1031 Specialists acts as a qualified intermediary. We are not a CPA firm, law firm, broker-dealer, or investment adviser, and nothing on this page is tax, legal, or investment advice. Section 1031 treatment depends on facts and circumstances; the taxpayer's own tax advisor determines reporting. References to the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury Regulations, IRS forms, and professional conduct rules are summaries for general information and may change. Delaware statutory trusts and other securitized replacement properties are securities and may only be offered through a properly licensed representative. Continuing-education credit is not yet approved for any course described here.
This is not legal, investment, nor tax advice. Seek the counsel of a qualified attorney, investment advisor and / or accountant.
© 2026 1031 Specialists. All rights reserved.