This would include architectural fees, new equipment, cost of protecting or defending your title to the property, or building improvements.

A host of answers here with a bunch of agents trying to defend having a listing agreement signed... they are all full of crap!

Then, he went to the bailiff 5 minutes before the hearing started and ask to be put to the top of the docket and explained that the defendant had already agreed to some things.  

Scott Meech seems like he can defend himself.

I have spoken with dozens of CPAs that understand the ruling in the passive loss limitations as @Brandon Hall explains it (tagging him in case he wants to defend his position), and very few that don't view it that way.

I use the term safe harbor - meaning if there ever is issues with it then the attorney you drafted it is gonna have to defend it.

In fact it may actually complicate litigation in the event a claim were to arise while adding additional insurance expenses to your real estate operation.To explain why this is the case I’m going to ask one very simple question: In the event a tenant dispute, premises liability, or any other claim were to arise, what prevents the Plaintiff’s attorney from merely listing your wife who it seems is the property deed holder in your fact pattern as a Defendant?

Supposedly the second lien holder is a credit card debt collector, they were listed as the defendant in the foreclosure case.

What happened in North Carolina was definitively unforeseeable, a freak event, without any forethought of such, or means to defend oneself from such unforeseeable. 

Defending them is akin to defending any pied piper that this forum supported.