I found this site by searching for info on Guidant Financial. There was a good long thread on the old Ed Slott forum under this URL:

http://www.irahelp.com/cgi-bin/forum/index.cgi/noframes/read/3743

There was a good discussion going about SDIRAs, custodians and other providers, and Guidant Financial in particular. Some of the messages were from people who had either just signed up with Guidant or were about to. But then this thread died out in 2005/2006, presumably replaced by this forum.

I came here because I am seeking both general info about the “Guidant model”; whereby your IRA invests in your LLC and your LLC invests in real estate or whatever you want to invest in, giving you “checkbook control” over your LLC account and its income and expenses.

I had been on the verge of faxing Guidant all my papers to transfer 3 rollover IRAs into their “system”. But then I asked them about getting one of the features mentioned in their promotional materials; an opinion letter citing cases proving that their model is legal and won’t cause me any problems. They balked at this, saying I had to sign up first to see the letter. I immediately smelled something fishy and began searching the internet for info from satisfied or dissatisfied Guidant customers.

Have any of you considered Guidant Financial? Have any of you contracted for their services? What are people’s opinions of Guidant and its services? Good experiences? Bad experiences?

As an FYI, here are a bunch of related URLs I pulled out of all the messages in the old thread i mentioned above.

http://www.trustamerica.com/self-directed-ira/custody_administration.php

http://www.iraresources.com/

http://www.penscotrust.com/

http://www.iralending.com/

http://www.sunwestira.com/index.html

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/regs/aos/ao2006-01a.html

most interesting letter – i wonder if it’s the one Guidant tells me I have to pay $4000 to see

http://www.trustetc.com/

Thanks for any feedback,
brian