How the Top1031 Grade works

What the Grade is

The Top1031 Grade answers one question: how much of this sponsor's track record is proven, on the public record?

It grades the sponsor's history, never a current offering. It is not a prediction of returns, not a recommendation, and not a rating of safety.

Every Grade is built from evidence you can check: SEC filings, documented program outcomes, the public adverse record, and the sponsor's own published results. A sponsor cannot pay for a letter, improve one commercially, or opt out. A sponsor with fewer than three tracked programs is NR — Not Rated — until its record is large enough to grade.

The letters

• A — Proven. A deep, clean record with published results covering most of it.
• B — Established. A seasoned record with documented outcomes and no verified warning.
• C — Unproven. Rateable, but not yet proven either way. Most young or quiet sponsors sit here. It is not an accusation.
• D — Warning. The record falls below the C band, or a verified warning event limits the letter.
• F — Adverse. The record falls below the D band. A qualifying integrity event forces this band.

Next to every letter we show proof depth, 1 to 5: how much evidence stands behind the letter. An A on proof 5 and a C on proof 1 are different kinds of statements, and we show the difference instead of hiding it. Each Grade also carries a short phrase — Proven & candid, Quiet veteran, Young, untested, Capital-loss alert — that says what kind of record it is.

Why the Grade is hard to fool

Three ideas do most of the work.

1. We count every program, not just the winners.

Most tracked DST offerings leave a federal Form D filing at the SEC after their first sale. We collect those filings and connect them to their sponsors. That gives us the full list of a sponsor's programs — including the ones its website never mentions — and every claim gets measured against that full list.

2. Bad news becomes public without the sponsor's help.

Foreclosures, receiverships, regulatory actions, and securities lawsuits reach the public record whether anyone likes it or not. A documented loss weighs heavily on the Grade, and no amount of sales success can average it away. A long record with no documented trouble counts in a sponsor's favor — as strong evidence, never as proof.

3. Results only count when they are published — and complete.

When a sponsor reports how a program ended, we verify that the cited document says it, and we label the figure "as reported by the sponsor." We never compute or estimate returns ourselves. Then comes the harder test: what share of the sponsor's completed programs got a published result at all? A complete record earns full credit. A highlight reel of hand-picked winners earns almost none.

How the letter is decided

Documented harm is checked first. A formal regulatory action alleging fraud puts a sponsor at F, whatever its size or sales record. A dominant documented capital loss, or verified severe events, caps the Grade at D or below. No later math can dilute these floors.

For everyone else, C is the starting rung. B is earned by depth: a seasoned record with at least three programs finished or old enough to judge, and clean harm and outcome scores. A is earned by receipts: at least ten such programs, and published results covering at least two-thirds of the completed record (a complete, reconciled cumulative table also counts). Sales success, size, or marketing cannot open the top bands alone.

Leverage changes how we read "still operating." A leveraged program still unresolved after seven years earns less credit, and less again after ten. A debt-free program can legitimately hold longer, and is scored differently.

The math, for the record. Four scored channels: harm record 35%, documented lifecycle outcomes 25%, observable market acceptance 25%, and disclosure candor 15%. The combined score can never sit far above the harm or outcome channels, so a strong sales record cannot outrun a weak outcome record. The fixed bands are A ≥71, B ≥61, C ≥50, D ≥36, and F below 36.

What moves a Grade

We collect evidence on daily, weekly, and monthly schedules and recompute every Grade weekly. A changed letter normally has to hold for two consecutive runs before it can publish; a verified harm event skips the wait. Every published change is reviewed, dated, and logged.

Every sponsor page also states, in plain terms, what would raise or lower that sponsor's Grade — in both directions.

The rules we hold ourselves to

• We never compute, estimate, or extrapolate a sponsor's investment returns.
• Every sponsor-reported figure is labeled as such and shown beside its source. Different kinds of figures are never merged or compared as if equivalent.
• Allegations are called allegations until adjudicated.
• No sponsor can pay for a Grade, improve one commercially, or opt out.
• Corrections are welcome, from sponsors and readers alike. Evidence moves a Grade; attestation alone does not. Disputes and their outcomes are logged.
• The methodology is versioned. This page describes v1, the version in force.

What the Grade cannot tell you

• Whether any current offering will perform. Nothing here predicts returns.
• Whether an unpublished result was good or bad. The Grade reads the public record, so a result that was never published may be missing from it. That is one reason "Unproven" exists — and why it is not an accusation.
• That a clean record proves safety. No documented distress is strong evidence, not proof.
• Anything about the deal in front of you. Property, structure, leverage, fees, and suitability still require the offering documents and your own advisors.

Grade methodology v1 · last revised July 21, 2026 · questions, corrections, or documentation: submit better data.