Separation of a personal asset from the business asset is for legal protection and to give a LLC its own legal identity. 3) Is it possible, for tax/business purposes, to sign the property over to the business without actually transferring title?

IOU is not seller financing and if you are licensed and advising this you need a chat with your broker.Dodd Frank, Truth in Lending Laws, Disclosures, SAFE Act, Fraud are a few topics to research...

Everything on it from practicing without a licence or failure to maintain a trust account to outright fraud. 

Yeah, definitely don't sign a contract saying you have the intent and ability to buy a property if you have neither because that would be inducing the seller to enter into an agreement under false pretenses/ "fraud in the inducement" (misleading the other party as to the facts upon which he/she will base his/her decision).  

Go online to your states attorney general and file a fraud complaint.

@Michael Oliver creating a fake lease is mortgage fraud. 

It appears that SVB was throwing money at 'woke' policies and that was part of the waste and fraud that they were engaged in....including large payouts to executives just before they went under.

That is FRAUD!

The security deposit is to make the unit identical to how it was the day you moved in.  

I've experienced more than six figures of incremental, unnecessary out of pocket costs related to contractor negligence (and fraud) to the point where it has influenced my strategy and how I am willing to participate in REI.