Ideal way to structure 50/50 partnership for small multi purchase

[Tony C.]

Hello BP,

Another investor and I are thinking of partnering up to purchase a small multifamily (btwn 5-10 units) for buy/hold. Our plan is to split everything 50/50, this includes: equity, down payment, income/expenses..everything. The potentially tricky part is..I plan to finance the down payment and other necessary costs with funds from a solo 401k. This solo 401k is the retirement account of my real estate LLC. On the other hand, the investor intends to finance with cash from his personal account.

My question is BP, from your experience, what do you think is a potential way we can structure this partnership intelligently?

Also, we are intending to secure our first ever commercial loan to debt finance the multi. Should we expect any difficulty from lenders if we intend to purchase the property with a LLC? If so, what are some alternative ways that we can structure the deal that will provide us the easiest path for financing? Where do we draft our agreement that will hammer out all the details of the "what-ifs" and when things go wrong (what if my investor decides to sell his stake, or if we disagree on management decisions, etc)

Searching through the forums for some answers, I've come across ideas such as using umbrella insurance rather than forming a LLC to avoid difficulties securing financing, purchasing with personal funds then quit claim deeding the property into a LLC (which likely won't work in my case), creating a separate LLC to hold all entities that will hold the funds, etc.

Looking for some BP wisdom..