I'm assuming some numbers scribbled on a piece of paper from the original owner is not going to be good enough for the City.

Nothing in Tampa, although I did consider investing there in recent years.One pain point is going to be doing a remote closing if you want to do that.For Florida you will need wet signed papers for part of the transaction (title transfer), so you'll need to get a US notarization from the embassy, and then physically mail stuff to the US (overnight air mail).

Signed the papers, mailed in my money, and I was now the proud owner-to-be. . .but there were unexpected obstacles.The foreclosed owner remained in the property.

Make your own spreadsheets, and write stuff down on this thing we call paper with this other thing we call a pen.... 

Overall, this plan we have makes sense to me on paper but wanted to put it out there to see if anyone has any thoughts.

Because my transaction is fairly simple, could I just do the papers myself and simply have the title/escrow companies transfer the funds from one office to another?

I'm totally looking for somebody that will help out with the paper work and keeping within the law; and also (And just as importantly) help finding the deals based upon my criteria.

Painted over wall paper - used a belt sander with 60 grit, then a skim coat mud, then normal paint prep.2.

One possible idea I had was working a new deal with seller for 50% less than the original deal on the recorded paper and separately give seller cash once I build and sell new home. 

However there is the potential for downstream liability in the event the GC does not properly paper contracts with sub contractors and those same down stream subcontractors aren't insured.