knowledge makes going forward easier

[Account Closed]

Didn't know where else to put this.
First: a thank you to everyone here for sharing your experience, time, knowledge, and wisdom. You do your best to keep us newbies on track, and I greatly appreciate you.

My offer on the short sale still hasn't been responded to, but following suggestions on other threads here, I called the city permitting section and found out that IF the extra room (if it IS an extra--not original) room is not permitted, it will cost about $300 to get "after-construction" permits for it. It will have to be inspected and brought up to code. If it's not up to code, that should show up in the inspection. SO, if it is to code, that (non-permitted part) may not show up until _I_ get a permit for a garage, which I expect I would do at some point. THEN I would need to address it.

I asked about code violations--another suggestion in another thread. This had (I don't quite understand this:) one violation, one notice of violation, then the notice of violation was closed. One person had been evicted from the place. That fellow suggested a call to the environmental department because there's a yard violation.
I called the environmental department. The present owner got a notice of violation June 1. (That was AFTER I made my offer--no, I did not make the call.) There are several violations, including weeds, accumulation of refuse, improper storage of stuff, an electrical violation, dangerous accessory structure. It turns out that the inspector will be going back out about July 2, and if it's not cleaned up, the original owner goes to court, and EVEN THOUGH the mls sheet states the trashy condition, the COUNTY holds the original owner responsible to clean. Since it could be a bunch of money, I plan to let that fellow do the cleanup and hauling.

Thanks to you all and this forum, I found this stuff out beforehand rather than getting a really nasty surprise later.
So what else can I do now, before I even know if my offer is accepted?
Thanks for being here.
ofgift