It’s worth the investment—placing the wrong tenant can cost you much more in the long run if you have to deal with evictions or non-payment.It’s about finding the right balance for your needs, but in my experience, having some professional oversight can save you a lot of headaches down the road.

I could be wrong there, but regardless I know developer pain when hands are tied.

He stated they also have misunderstood the application of the law, and in doing so, made a hasty response to his request that they notify the tenant which leaves them open to a claim against them. . should anything go wrong. 

It doesn't have to be a lie, her fault, or irrelevant even though Noyessie is definitely not doing anything wrong.

And I definitely don’t need to get off on the wrong foot with my first rental.

Nothing wrong with buy and hold.

While reading your experiences and thoughts, I saw I would be making the same decisions (and then I saw why they were wrong).

Because two things: first, if you can't save enough money to make a down payment on an investment property, you shouldn't even be in this game, and second you are going to need cash reserves to cover the infinity of things that can go wrong on a rental, which means you should already have some free cash flow coming in from somewhere to account for that before you even rent the place out.

What exactly has she done wrong? 

I doubt you can just reactivate the license when it's expired for more than two years, but maybe I'm wrong.