To leverage this benefit, prospective property owners must engage in short-term rentals and provide substantial services to guests, such as daily cleaning, meal provisions, or transportation services.Additionally, navigating a material participation test becomes crucial.

The savings in operational costs alone makes it appealing to institutional players.  

If they are breaking the lease in some way then follow the steps to correct that behavior.You may be able to evict if your lease stipulates that they may not engage in criminal activity BUT you probably must have a conviction in court to refer to.

And of course, there are always the major players in most markets: CBRE, Colliers, Cushman, Marcus and Millichap, etc.  

It turned out that the “plumber” they engaged isn’t even licensed.

I have looked at them, but am having a hard time interpreting them.. they say that any individual who engages in lending that is secured my real property in a business sense (does so more more often than one isolated incident) would be considered someone who requires a mortgage banker license.

It's best to avoid engaging in any conversations with them and just handle the situation smartly, in a way that protects your interests without directly interfering with them.

The current state is that we have an architect site/plot plan and need to engage the the County to get approval. 

I joined last year with similar goals to you, and have learned so much since then through engaging with the community.

With the understanding that it would be inappropriate to ask for your judgement call - is there are relatively simple way to dig into 162 case law so that I, as a taxpayer can decide where I fall into the liberal conservative spectrum interpretation with 162, so as to make my decision prior to engaging the discussion with CPA?