I spoke with a lady who started off with very little like myself and built her portfolio up to 9 joint venture properties and had been pretty happy with the relationship.

Quote from @Nancy Almann: thanks @Kevin Sobilo - tenants who live in another, smaller apartment want this unit for their 4-legged family. 

Any of the above kills the STR loophole under this "substantially all work" option for material participation.Is there a way to qualify if all my outside help was a cleaning lady for 2 hours?

It seems like there should be a dividing line somewhere to make it easy, but also maybe not because both of these ladies seem to have pretty solid claims although I would think the last one has a better shot.From a legal POV (although this is not legal advice although I am an attorney), without a will the estate gets probated along blood lines.

I had a few properties when a lady that owned a cleaning company I had contracted with previously approached me about combining forces on a property management company.

Thank you ;-)Nancy

A couple of days ago, both my realtor and I called her number to follow up and the lady says the number does not belong to my tenant i.e. she's a diff person.

Across ten doors I've had three turnovers in five years and one of the ladies that moved out (she wanted a larger house) still calls me occasionally to see if I have something available again. 

Hi, what’s the young lady name?

The good thing is the duplex is worth almost double what we built it for and we have had good tenants on both sides ($185,000 rental income so far) except for the bed bug lady so everything has worked out ok.