—The doctrine of the right of survivorship in cases of real estate and personal property held by joint tenants shall not prevail in this state; that is to say, except in cases of estates by entirety, a devise, transfer or conveyance heretofore or hereafter made to two or more shall create a tenancy in common, unless the instrument creating the estate shall expressly provide for the right of survivorship; and in cases of estates by entirety, the tenants, upon dissolution of marriage, shall become tenants in common.History.

Lots of issues with transferring after the purchase, too.  

The lease they have in place still holds and is likely transferred in kind to you.  

For instance Texas has enacted a law covering contract for deed which, among other requirements, mandates a recorded transfer of title once the equity portion hits a certain percentage of property value, and mandates disclosures written in a specific type size, as well as various other rules.  

What are the implications if the owner transfers title to the buyer and buyer skips out?

Expecting a transfer on January 1 is even less realistic.

I am nervous about sending a wire transfer to them in that it may go into someone's pockets and I have nothing.  

I would recommend transferring the property into a land trust and then transfer the beneficial interest of the trust to your LLC.

You assign the deed as collateral, you may have just sold an unregulated bond besides the SEC issues you mentioned as being covered above, as any transfer of the debt insturment for the balnace owing (as with a deed-in-leiu) cancellation of debt, can be viewed then as a security transfer.

Best think to do it look at the previous owner and see if there is the same last name from the previous owner or did someone transfer from their personal name to a trust or something.