Qualified Intermediary
API
Asset Preservation, Inc. · Parent: Stewart Information Services Corporation (NYSE: STC)
- FEA membership
- FEA member
- CES® holders
- CES® on staff; names not published on cited pages
- Fidelity bond
- Not published on cited pages
- E&O / other cover
- Not published on cited pages
- How funds are held
- Segregated
- Dual-signature wires
- Wire controls unknown
- Reverse / improvement / DST
- Reverse Yes · Improvement Yes · DST Yes
- Last sourced
- 2026-09-05
Fund handling
API states exchange funds are not commingled with its operating accounts and that it offers non-commingled accounts plus multiple investment options. Current firm pages do not publish a commingled-vs-per-client breakdown beyond the operating-account split.
Who it is for
National delayed and specialized 1031 work, including exchanges that use a Delaware Statutory Trust interest as replacement property. API markets to individual investors and to advisors; Stewart-branded pages present it as the Stewart 1031 subsidiary. A DST interest is a securities offering; API’s published role is Qualified Intermediary, not DST sponsor.
Verdict
API’s current public file is thinner on dollar limits than IPX’s. The firm publishes FEA membership, CES® on staff (unnamed on the homepage), non-commingled accounts, a fidelity bond, E&O, and — the actual differentiator — a Stewart Letter of Assurance that it says is not capped like a bond. That LOA is a parent performance promise, not FDIC insurance and not a substitute for reading how the bank account is titled. Older third-party pages quote stale bond numbers; those figures are omitted here because API’s live site no longer states them.
Notes
Asset Preservation, Inc. is Stewart’s wholly owned 1031 Qualified Intermediary. The security page is one of the clearer industry statements that QIs are not federally licensed and that only a handful of states add consumer-protection rules.
API lists California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington as states with some QI-level rules. That is industry context, not a sourced list of API’s own licenses; this file does not invent registration numbers.
API’s DST page (last updated on the firm site 2024-05-05; fetched 2026-09-05) explains using a DST beneficial interest as §1031 replacement property and notes that DST interests are securities even though they can be treated as real estate for the exchange. That is QI education and administration, not an API-sponsored offering. See QI and DST.