Talk about putting the cart before the horse lolThomas S.  

The cash for keys was in case they tried to dodge the 72 hour notice and drag their feet and stalling it in court. 

Example: Don't buy a property directly across the street from a horse racetrack - but not for the obvious reason. 

Then the home owner will stall when an offer comes in.Another downside to a short sale is until the tenants ( home owners  if the case) move out you cannot see all the damage to the property like with  a foreclosure that is vacant.

. $8,000 seems high to me, but A) I don't know the entire scope, B) I don't know what was agreed to before hand, and C) as a former boss of mine used to say, you can't put the s*** back in the horse.

If the neighborhood stalls out, well... not so much. 

The other way around really is putting the cart before the horse, which I've seen plenty of times before and I've seen people lose as much as $5k EMD because of it.

I might have put the cart before the horse by posting on this so far in advanced, but the way I see it is that the more you know about the problems you might run into the better it is to avoid those problems in the future. 

As with any such questions that are in essence asking for legal advice, you should either consult an a lawyer or, in this case, how about simply calling the city to get it from the horse's mouth?

What currently pays the bills is being a Jockey Agent in the horse racing business.