The city was "not able to locate" the permit paperwork or plans, but I was able to uncover a receipt from the building department covering the addition and the second kitchen that was installed by the previous owner. 

Having a roofer come out to assess the roof or an HVAC contractor out to inventory and assess the HVAC units can often be done at a nominal expense and can uncover issues or areas of concern that would likely be missed in a more general inspection.

 Assuming background check and credit check are free of evictions or criminal record and credit score is decent, I seem to uncover the biggest red flags through talking to the applicants while showing the property.

Usually a google search will uncover those.Harder to find is that some judges in certain jurisdictions like to bend the law to help tenants and drive delinquency higher for apartments in that area. 

What we need help with is uncovering what works in this area.

You notify the police and they uncover several more.

Had I not done the inspection (waiving appraisal and inspection contingencies is not uncommon in this hot market), I would not have uncovered the other issues.

I knew this was tough as the police involved did not even uncover what had happened.

You get to keep your contingency in place - in short you can still do a full inspection and still back out of the deal if you uncover something big, of course you can’t renegotiate for anything other than foundation/sewer but you can certainly back out.2.

Get an ESA I, that'll liklely result in needing an ESA II (due to the fact the ESA I will uncover the tank).