This guy did save you from making a mistake and providing a service to the IRA, which could very well cause problems with the IRS later, so that's good.

I guess at the end of the day though, if the vehicle has a malfunction and is the ultimate cause of an accident, that would always come back on me as the owner

With no one in overall charge, not every tenant pulls in the pails in the morning, on windy days, the empty pails would blow over the neighbors sidewalk, or halfway up the street, causing traffic problems.

You also have to be careful about evicting - there has to be a just cause.

If he has caused actual harm to someone at the property, or threatened to cause harm to someone at the property or physically dome harm to someone’s property then he can be evicted.

The best way to explaining this is for you to download an IRR calculator spreadsheet or build your own simple one and play around with one.For what its worth most deals I deem meeting minimal IRR standards is 13-15% but you have to dig a little deeper to uncover the real placements of cashflows and capitalization events... and then dig even deeper to verify the assumptions such as occupancy, rent increases per year, and what reversion cap rate was used.Again I don't look for IRR cause its manipulated a lot instead I look at total return on a 5 year basis.

He pays me market rent and is responsible for any damage caused by his tenants and also minor maintenance. 

Hindsight of course, lesson learnedHe’s been “ok” as a tenant, consistently late on payment, causing me to post notice multiple times, but eventually does pay.

You can always look for a bank that does not have "overlays" and will allow you to use the HELOC funds as long as the new payment does cause your DTI to be higher than approval.

Since it is on a different platform I don't want to cause a stir on BP, so PM me if you would like more info and details on where to easily find these events.