Example would be, your not going to take marriage advice from a friend that has a terrible marriage!

A marriage and divorce is a lot less expensive than $37K (15% of $250K).  

IMO, the "knowing" is a past business transaction or related by blood or marriage, it's not that I know he is the owner of drug store.If you have A & B & C, C & B have done business in the past and so have A & B, then before the three join in some entity, A & C should conduct some business transaction and complete it before they enter as the three partners.

Caveat: possibility of marriage?

He and his wife want to apply for the rental so that is the good news.To make a long story short, he ownes a house from a previous marriage that he is renting.

Life events, death, law suit, bankruptcy, might be a marriage that gives reason to look at leasehold interests.

Those are called "nominal recordings", usually done by divorce, marriage, inheritance, etc where there is no sale of the property involved.

You could also look at the paperwork for the purchase closing and go back to the lawyer who handled it.You probably have a simpler situation if it was a single member LLC but the situation could become complicated by a multi-member LLC or any changes in legal status (marriage/divorce) of the member even for a single member LLC.

What if the marriage becomes rocky?

Not sure your marriage would survive all the drama of living in a rehab-in-process but you might consider an FHA 203k loan to purchase and rehab (if the government decides to go back to work).