I am in the process of shutting down my SEP IRA this past week or so (~$240 cash in Strata, 69 charged off notes remain).
I spoke to Strata first and detailed my intentions of rolling (not direct transfer) the remaining cash and paying any fees with outside funds. They stated quite certainly that there would be just a $50 final account termination fee. I then spoke to Nate at LC. He sent me the Account Closure Request (Strata form tweaked with LC logo and allowing the premature distribution WITH exception (something that is omitted on Strata's form quite specifically.)) The LC form gives a breakdown of Strata fees which appears to be different than the original form I received when I opened the account. This form indicates account value < $10,000 fee of $50 and >= $10,000 fee of $150. I originally thought the closure was going to run me $200+. He also sent me a separate form for the transfer of the charged off notes to one of my taxable accounts. I have a total of six accounts (2 IRAs and 4 taxable). These will all be funneled down to one final account as a basket for all of the charged off notes.
If this plays out as described, total fees will run me $75. $25 from a direct partial transfer of $15,000 last year and then this $50 for the final rollover. Better than the $150 if I closed it all at once. Probably could have avoided the $25 last year if I did that as a rollover as well as Strata told me there was no fee for checks.
I just got a followup email from LC indicating they received the paperwork and it is in process...
"...Your documents have been received! We're currently reviewing them and we'll be sure to get back to you with any updates as soon as possible. Typically, the account closure and Note transfer process can take 2-3 weeks to be fully completed..."
Hopefully this IRA will be wrapped up by the end of Jan or first of Feb and will post back with the final results.