Help with Partner Holding Paper Strategy

[Brett C.]

Hi everyone, I have a partner who wants to hold paper long term for some of my deals. Sa-weeeeeet! I want to make the process as PASSIVE, painless and professional as possible for my partner and other potential partners but I've never done it before.

Specifics - my partner will hold the deed and "be the bank" on a long term amortization for me at a reasonable negotiated rate. I have to aquire the property with a combo of sufficient equity/cash flow/my own money to make my partner feel comfortable with the deal, at which point we will close and my partner gets the deed.

Questions:

1. I want to provide a PASSIVE & professional service for my partner where a third party manages the note, ie I send the payments to this company (not my partner) and they collect and we can log in on line to see status, amortization, payoff balance should I decide to refi, etc. I can't be mailing checks to my partner and managing the balance on an excel spreadsheet or bankrate.com. Where do I go for this service, and how/when do I set it up? I would assume we get in place prior to closing but I don't know.

2. My partner will "hold the paper", but who/where does the actual deed go? Does my partner actually hold the deed in a lockbox or do we send it to the registry of deeds, or the third party/bank type place that will manage the payments?

3. Can any old real estate attorney close a deal like this in NH / MA or do I need a special attorny / title company.

4. The basic lending terms are negotiated and agreed upon between my partner and I, but obviously we need to get it down on paper with a mortgage type contract that is formal and legitimate. This is where the rubber hits the road, it's the backbone of our partnership and it needs to be legally binding and representative of our intentions. Where do I go for this? Are there attorneys or third party loan service providers who specialize in this that I could go to in advance? Having this stuff set up in advance would help me reassure other potential partners that I know what I'm doing and that I can provide a passive investing experience for them.

Any help for this strategy / partnership is appreciated. On the surface it is very simple, I'll aquire a property that is a good investment for me and my partner, they'll loan me the money and the property will be their collatoral, win win. But when you are about to go and actually execute it and set it up, it's not so simple!