CO-Ownership Agreement Questions

[Brian Henry]

Hi BP,

I am about to buy a SFR that my son will live in while he is in college the next 3 years. We are having him be a co-owner as he will make it owner occupied and will have 2 roommates living with him and paying rent. Do I need to have a formal lawyer approved document to spell out the co-ownership agreement? My wife and I are funding the down payment and will pay his living expenses (we had already saved for those expenses in 529 and ED-IRA), so essentially, we are taking care of 100% of the expenses and funding. Do we need to spell that out in an agreement?

Also, we do intend to have our son be the property manager for the house and would pay him for that service with plans that he could treat that as earned income and could invest that in his Roth-IRA...any issues there I need to consider?

My frugality keeps me from running out and talking with a lawyer/cpa ...can I handle these with simple online templates?  Thanks for the advice!