What the 'family office' label does not buy: an SEC suit over $40m in note sales
The SEC has sued a firm called Sanders Family Office, alleging it sold around $40 million in promissory notes without a broker licence. The case is a reminder that the label carries no regulatory weight.
On 23 June 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit in San Antonio against a firm called Sanders Family Office and its sole owner, Margaret Sanders. The allegation is simple: they sold investments they had no licence to sell.
According to the complaint, between August 2020 and March 2023 the firm pitched roughly 600 investors on promissory notes issued by a company called Wells Real Estate Investment. Investors were told the money would buy and refurbish income-producing property in South Florida, with the notes backed by that real estate. Some carried interest of 10% to 12% a year.
The SEC’s case does not turn on whether the pitch was attractive. It turns on registration. The complaint says neither the firm nor its owner was registered as a broker-dealer or tied to one, and that they “were not permitted to sell Wells’s securities.” They sold them anyway, the filing alleges, raising most of the money Wells took in. For that work the defendants received “at least $2,977,099.53 in transaction-based sales commission payments”, according to the complaint. Per-deal pay to someone the SEC says held no broker licence is the kind of arrangement regulators look for.
The complaint also describes how retirement savings entered the picture. It alleges the firm built a process to roll investors’ 401(k) and other retirement funds into self-directed IRAs so the cash could be used to buy the notes, with the owner and her agents guiding people through the steps.
What investors were actually buying, the SEC says, was a problem. The complaint describes Wells itself as a fraudulent scheme, alleging it made Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors using new money, concealed that its properties were already heavily mortgaged, and diverted funds to its chief executive and her husband. Wells raised at least $56 million from about 660 investors before it collapsed in August 2024, the filing says.
The Sanders defendants are not accused of running Wells. The SEC casts the firm as the sales operation behind it, the outfit that recruited, trained and supervised the agents who moved the notes. The complaint says the owner ran regular video meetings, talked up property values, and fielded questions about interest payments.
The SEC brings two claims: selling unregistered securities, and acting as an unregistered broker. It is seeking injunctions, repayment of the commissions, and civil penalties. The allegations have not been tested in court. The defendants have not yet responded, and no judge has ruled.
Why the name matters
There is a wider point here for anyone weighing up an adviser. “Family office” is not a regulated term. It carries no licence and no minimum standard. A firm can put it on a letterhead without holding any of the registrations that govern who may sell securities or take commissions. Regulators look past the label to the conduct: who solicited the investor, and who was paid per deal.
That gap between name and substance is the reason verification matters. A title tells you what a firm calls itself. It does not tell you what the firm is permitted to do, or who has checked it.
