It's not complicated, but you have no reason to believe he or his mentor are looking out for you, Valerie.Jeff

Things have a way of getting complicated really quickly. 

Let's not complicate it by talking about depreciation recapture and various minor complications and assume a 25% rate on the capital gain, or $100k tax hit.You can buy a new property using $1M proceeds, do cost seg that at a typical 30% ratio creates $300k in deductible bonus depreciation and save $120k at the highest Federal rate.

I guess it is my lack of experience, knowledge and network that makes it seem complicated to me!  

But that's still problematic as you'd be concealing something from the lender as far as the true source of those funds.As far as how to structure the partnership, it can be as informal as a letter of understanding or as complicated as a multi-page contract/agreement.

I’m working on my first deal and am looking for a little advice as it’s a bit complicated - property is in FL.

It sounds like before you go out of state and complicate things even more, try to do something locally.

@Alan AyalaAs a (former) fellow engineer, Im going to be very blunt and honest with you so please don’t take this the wrong way....You are over-complicating everything you are doing.

Are we over-complicating this? 

I imagine private lending is more about building a relationship and hard money lending is more about the property itself.3) Complications With Cash Out Refinance: Is it possible that I buy the property entirely with my own funds (plus some private lending), put both of our names on the title, and then have the cash-out refinance be entirely in my partner's name?