Equity partner structure for buy and hold

[Josh Lyons]

Hi everyone, I've been reading about how partnerships can be set up and I have a specific question.  If two people want to buy a house to rent as 50/50 equity partners, how could the ongoing maintenance costs be structured/split, especially if one partner can't afford to pay some of the ongoing maintenance?  

For example, if two people put 50% each on the down payment of the house then they will theoretically split all profit at 50% as well. But, what if only ONE owner can afford to make a large repair (i.e. replace the A/C unit) after one year and the other owner cannot afford to help with that repair? What would be a common way to deal with this regarding the profit split?  I understand that equity partnerships can be structured in almost any way that the two people agree to, but I'm curious about what a "common" structure would be in the above example.  

Essentially, I'm trying to understand how an equity partnership can be structured regarding the split on ongoing maintenance versus the profit split.  Ideally, each partner would pay the maintenance costs but maybe that isn't always possible.  Any comments would be great, thanks!

[Bryan Devitt]

Repair money should be in the bank, not coming out of your pockets when it happens. If the money in that account isn't large enough to cover the cost and the second person can pay a larger share, then pay for the repair and first person's future profits are used to pay back the extra with interest as if it was a short term bank loan.