Unless the brokerage is indeed going above and beyond in finding you a home run deal, the upfront charge is unnecessary.

The one that comes to my mind is if the city/county imposed STR License fees and hotel taxes and the owner does not pay these.

This happened recently in Miami Beach (they have already reverted the decision) and imposed fines as high as $20,000 USD for a single offense.

This will help you better estimate cost of rehabs as well as learn what may be necessary/unnecessary, rehab pricing and prevent over-rehabbing

Not ban them, not impose Owner occupied requirements, etc. just regulate the existing housing laws (dumpster that you mentioned, noise ordinance) Hosts have an obligation to be good hosts.

Talk about a lot of extra unnecessary liability

I would hope that this company is encouraging prospective clients to engage the services of a third party appraiser, rather than brushing off the necessity of an appraisal as an unnecessary annoyance.On the one hand, I'd like to say this is a new outfit that just has more business than they expected.

Look at the rules and use defined language like short-term or long-term.These are just a few examples of questions I see caused by the confusion of an unnecessary term.

I also think Tom wasn't suggesting there's something in a policy that prohibits an insured from making the payment, only that if the payment was unnecessary or somehow impedes the insurer from mitigating the loss, the insured might not recover what they paid out. 

For example, if the city see a finished basement, even if it is unoccupied, they will threaten to fine you and impose violations if you don't return it to its unhabitable condition (particularly if there is, say, a bathroom there)--I have no idea of the legality of this, but I have had this occur to me.In short: I've come to the conclusion that the city has no interest in you doing this, and will attempt to actively impede your progress at every step.