Feel free to hit me up as I have a coupe of properties in your area and live just south of you.Daniel

Can the owner in this case, deed equitable interest or some other legal instrument to allow myself to actually not only make repairs on the property but only pay the owner after the house is repaired and the house is actually sold?

The FNMA deed of trust (Section 22) has a blank before the % that gets filled in:Trustee shall apply the proceeds of the sale in the following order: (a) to all expenses of the sale, including, but not limited to, Trustee’s fees of ____________% of the gross sale price and reasonable attorneys’ fees; (b) to all sums secured by this Security Instrument; and (c) any excess to the person or persons legally entitled to it. 

(I have a decent job, and I know I can re-coup in another 6 months or so.)

Again use around $400K cash to buy a passive instrument that pays monthly probably 7-8% annually  and use the other $150K ish to purchase $400K of zero coupon TIC or DST. 

In contrast, you can be instrumental in bringing down the world economy and not even get indicted.

So the LLC will need to sell the assets and 1031 into another instrument which can be compatible with 1031 but be completely passive and allow them to generate income on the deferred tax and deferred depreciation recapture for the remainder of their lives.

You've identified the lender's title policy as a junk "fee".You consider the lender's underwriting as well as the preparation of loan docs/security instrument by the lender's attorney to be "junk".There may be a few dollars to argue about in that list but not these.

@Gail Greenberg I don't know any HML or private lender that doesn't record a security instrument (deed or mortgage) against an asset they are lending on.

You should be able to do this yourself through online access to local land records... using the instrument number or liber/folio of those docs.