Simple JV house-flipping structure questions

[Ezra Meyal]

Hello BP - long-time reader and fan of the content here, first-time poster.

I am working with long-time family friends and buying flipping properties in North Carolina.  They are experienced rehabbers, but tend to rehab and hold.  They're looking for me to join as a capital provider to scale their operation and move into flipping.  I don't know a ton about rehabbing properties, but I'm good at business development and have a decent chunk of capital to deploy, so we think there's a natural fit for us to work together.

We've agreed to the below structure:

1. 50/50 hard dollar cash equity on all deal-related, renovation, holding, sales, etc. costs

2. We don't plan to use leverage

3. 60 / 40 profit split to my partners / myself respectively, since they'll be doing all the actual work

4. All costs tracked and authorized by both parties

We want to keep it as simple as possible, but know that things get more complicated with partners, legal docs, bank accounts, etc. We're envisioning starting an LLC (is this the right entity to use?), opening a bank account, funding said bank account 50/50 with $$$, and then issuing funds out of that bank account for the project costs. Then, once the property is sold, the account is funded with that $, both investors return their hard-dollar investment 50/50, and whatever is left over is split 60/40.

This sounds a lot simpler than is probably reality, so that's why I'm asking for your expertise.  I'm a pretty conservative person, so don't really just want to do a handshake deal without proper structuring and documentation, even though I know my partners well.  We also want to have everything set up before we start hunting for properties, so we don't miss out on a good deal because the documentation isn't buttoned up.

Questions: best way to do this? are the terms outlined above good for me, or should I ask for more (as the more or less "passive" partner)? what entity to use?  do I just call a lawyer and say "hey I'd like to have [insert type of agreement] drafted up, can you help"?  I really need to 3rd grade level explanation here.

Also, first post, apologies if it's not in the right forum!