Gifting equity in a house may be more trouble than it is worth if you are not near the life-time exclusion1) Potentially having to get the property appraised everytime an equity is gifted2) Having a title company update the title every time3) Exemption of the gift tax return is normally for cash gifts below the annual gift tax exclusion, you may still need to file if you gift non-cash4) If there is partial ownership over several years, having to properly pro-rate certain items such as real estate taxes, mortgage interest and rental income if the property is a rentalBest of luck 

I found and joined those DU groups on FB (but I'm having trouble being able to post there).

Yes, I'm a Property Manager in the greater Phoenix area.We are a mid-size property manager, large enough to have great tools and support but small enough to provide personal service.

What do you use for managing properties?

None were a match for me personally and many were not a strategy I wanted or too speculative (such as opportunistic strategy which is the riskiest strategy or investing in tertiary markets which also tend to be the first to go belly up when there is trouble etc).You probably actually want to look at your operating agreement to see what rights you have to books and records, etc. 

Navigating the Surge in Rental Application Fraud: A Guide for Landlords and Property ManagersIn recent years, the rental market has experienced a troubling rise in application fraud.

That is a question for an attorney, which they could potentially get in trouble which could be fines from authorities buy my guess is it does not provide you a "get out of trouble pass" as you may have also committed fraud if you executed agreements which were false. 

He obviously will only get himself into more trouble because he now knows 1% more than he did, but not nearly enough to keep out of trouble.

This also leads owners to ASSUME simpler is better when it comes to management contracts.

Do the math, it my not be worth the trouble.