Issuing a percentage of my grant deed

[Michael Kim]

Hello everyone. I’d like to hear your professional opinion and thoughts regarding a proposal I received. I recently purchased a property in Los Angeles with about 50% equity and the rest via financing with the goal being to entitle the property to develop an apartment building. We would entitle and then sell the city approvals to a builder. A syndication group that we worked with on another deal (much simpler deal) has proposed to invest roughly $300,000 into the deal for the entitlement fees (and them handling all of the leg work) in exchange for a percentage of my grant deed. They also found this property for us. The percentage would be based off their $300,000 contribution compared to my total equity amount. They prefer not to have any partnership contracts in place, stating they only do handshake/verbal deals with all of their clients. Signing off a portion of my grant deed without any written agreement nor recourse down the line (if the deal went sour) worries me. Have any one of you been involved in a similar type of deal/partnership and how did you structure it? Also, any thoughts and opinions on this is much appreciated. Thanks everyone.