What's the easiest way of getting this stuff clear from the unit without opening myself up to some sort of liability?

@Miguel Santiago-  finding a lender  willing to lend on a  piece of land  for a  rental or  vacation home  construction will be  difficult / impossible   and if you do - the  required  down payment will be  large  ......try leveraging  anything  else you have  to get the  funds  to  acquire the land ...retirement account  loan /  stock loan /  cash back refinance /   savings /  gift  etc .....try  contacting the  smaller  local to the  area  you want  banks and  credit unions as they  might be more  willing to  lend on something like this as  compared to a national or   large  lender 

Typically the easiest way to get started is by taking advantage of a low down payment loan on a small multifamily 2-4 units. 

It seems the easiest thing to do is a written agreement for you to purchase her share of each LLC and she's removed from the LLC.

The easiest way to kick off real estate investing is to owner occupy either a house hack or a multi-unit.

@Alyssa McEwan One of the easiest ways to construct a deal with a HML is to simply present the deal, go over your experience level and have the lender give you some preliminary numbers to look at.

Partner with someone that has the $$Get a relative to "gift" you the $$Get off-the-record loan for the $$Wait to do deals until you've saved up some $$

Gifting the property to the grandson may result in losing of the step up in basis.

Not legal advice of course but starting an LLC is the easiest step in my opinion because in most states it's relatively cheap and it's a step in the right direction of taking business seriously.

If they have enough money, Investor A could gift the funds to Investor B, who then uses the money and his good credit to purchase the property.