Estate planning with investments with my elderly investor/lender

[Josh Blankenship]

Hello everyone, Im coming out of the shadows with a question for you brilliant RE folks. I've enjoyed BP forums and especially the podcast for a few years now. I have a situation/question I hope i can get some wisdom on to aid in somewhat of a hurtle in investing into longterm/larger deals... 

My investor who funds 90% of my deals (flips and BRRR rentals) is 82 years old. Although as sharp and as wise as can be, he is up there in age and because of that doesn't want to invest in long term holds... for 4 years he has held mortgages and notes for me with a one year balloon, which gives me time to rehab and sell or rehab and refi. He likes this model because they are short term turn arounds and a quick turn on his money. He holds one long term mortgage for me. In the case of his death I have 12 months to refinance and pay his son the remaining debt. I am trying to get into an apartment deal but he doesn't like the idea of partnering on this type of deal to avoid the probability that he will pass away in the holding period and it puts me and his heirs into a strange situation...

My question is this... 

Is there a way to do a long term (say, an apartment deal) with him where if he would pass away in the time of the hold, his children would benefit from a tax perspective in the acquiring of an asset or if it was a limited partnership, gaining ownership of the entity and would start receiving the cash flow from the investment with tax savings compared to estate taxes? If there is a way I want to create a win-win for him/his heirs and myself that would be appealing to him to do a deal like this.

this is not my expertise as you can probably tell but I'm thankful for any input from the pros. 

thanks!