Attempting to collect from someone who has no incentive to pay will drastically lower your chances to actually get the agreed upon money. 

Neither I nor others have any idea what has happened to the money, and despite numerous attempts to reach out, there has been no response from him.

I recently attempted this with an FHA loan for a client, but it was unsuccessful.

How is this attempted by other, less informed, tax pros on the return?

While all the posts have at lease some legitimate points, I personally believe camp 1 is missing the opportunities present to protect assets under US law mostly because they don’t either understand asset protection, or don’t want to bother with it, so rather than do a proper evaluation they dismiss it as something that won’t work to justify their unwillingness to entertain the idea.Camp 2 is deluding themselves - which delusion has been enhanced by charlatans writing books, giving seminars, and selling packaged plans all of which either attempt to hide your assets or hide the ownership of your assets.  

Really no reason to attempt to do this with an LLC.

Since reserve studies attempt to forecast replacement costs of items over a 30 year period they are having to recalibrate since the reserves they are now using did not use the latest increase in construction costs.

However, one concern with newbies is attempting to self-manage in high crime areas.

Quote from @Padam Neopane: I would not attempt this on your own, especially the first time.

I'll have to find out about all these laws/rules before I attempt anything.