They should have clearly communicated to you what work required permits and that they could get those or not but the choice would be yours and that you would bear the cost implications either way.

Bonus points if it also is great for maintenance requests and managing current tenant communications.

However, I have reached out to and interviewed several PMs, and there seems to be a big communication issue - a large number of them are unresponsive, replying w/ pertinent info days after they said they would -  if at all. 

If allowable, I think the next steps would be to communicate with the zoning jurisdiction, or city council for the next steps.

Also, building strong relationships with your investors and maintaining open communication is key to establishing trust.Your deal structure looks promising, and with your background, I'm sure you'll do well in this new venture.

We have a multi family rental unit which uses oil for home/water heating.Our tenants are responsible for purchasing their own heating oil.We are trying to figure out a way to determine when/if our tenant is running out of fuel.Our maintenance person has communicated that one unit has repeatedly run out of fuel, creating an increase service cost on their boiler.I know there are WiFi options to meter usage.

I can't communicate with it, change codes or even see the codes.

I was looking to buy a home from him last year but he blasted me in an email for looking him up on @biggerpockets  in this post, so I stopped communication. 

Leasing it is different than providing accounting, reporting, repairs, communicating with you/tenants/insurance/lender, collecting rents.

Communicating, applying, and documenting that system should help reduce the liabilities associated with possible discrimination issues.