Hi everyone, I'm new to 1031 exchanges, what safeguards are there so an intermediary doesn't steal your funds on a delayed exchange?

They were able to appear very professional and answer all of the correct "lingo" because they were simply copy and pasting the words and acting as an "intermediary" back and forth.

So, the attorney would be an intermediary.

And more importantly, they will be the intermediary between you and the lender and will be able to clarify many things using "lender language", making things - typically - much smoother for you.

You could however work with an intermediary to develop a strategy that would qualify the property.

Hopefully you are working with an intermediary and they are holding your funds.

There's a bunch of other intermediary steps I left out, but this is it in a nutshell.

The proceeds go directly to a third-party qualified intermediary (I'll call that a QI).

And in a fit of self-promotion, the three most active qualified intermediaries on BP would probably be myself, @Robert Hetsler and Bill Exeter.

With an intermediary there is less of the "greedy seller" mentality that breaks apart deals.