I immediately pulled up the tax assessor on my phone and located where the taxes are being paid.

There in lies the attraction of PN investing with discounts.  

contact the attorney whom the township hired or  look up the tax records at the assessor's office and find out who has the title.

IMO the commissions he is making come from the fact that he is an agent not because he is in a JV with you so it lies outside the JV.  

Then, if your contract expires, it just expires, no false promise was ever made, no lies, no false implications, no conniving or fudging because you can't belly up to the owner and negotiate a deal they will agree to sell at, to anyone.

Try the local assessors office.

i went to city hall who said to go to the court who said to go to a different court who said to go to public assessors office who said to go to register of deeds who said to go to the bank who said to go to the main branch of the bank and nooobooddyyy has anything.....i tried listsource as well. nothing......do i need to manually build a list?

There is no need to lie about things in real estate investing but don't bash people.

There is no need to lie to make a deal. 

It's based on what the assessor deems the values are based on comps and BPO's.