Investing in property with your kids

[Christine Graviet]

I need advice, suggestions, anything.  About 3 months ago, we decided to invest in a house (with rental accessory apartment) in an area where 3 of our kids go to college.  Our oldest and her husband were wanting to invest in a place with us and be 50/50 partners.  The understanding was that we were going to put 20% down and they were going to live on the main floor of the house ($1150) and we were going to rent out the bottom ($950).  Mortgage is $1450 and we wanted to pull in $2100 to cover expenses, etc.  We are scheduled to close at the end of the month and now we find out that we are not in agreement as to how this will work financially.  We thought that our kids would not be full partners until they put down 30k (half of down) and they thought that they could just live there and whatever they paid in rent, would be fully applied to their portion of the down payment.  I guess i'm fine with applying part of their rent towards equity but not the full rent.  What is fair?  Help!  And lesson learned would be to NOT invest with family?  Thanks in advance!