Fred Heller is right in that an estate attorney needs to review deal for Widow as we don't know how things are titled, is there a trust involved, is there a will and or if there is going to be fight over Husband's estate from family or anyone else.

The time when that would come up is when a borrower wanted to fight you.

The enrolled agent on this site also goes onto state there is case law (court decisions) that were in favor of cost allocation on Sch E, but the actual cases were not cited, and that if you were "aggressive and willing to fight with the IRS" the case law might actually support this.

It just seems every time I turn around taxes are going up or I have to fight the assessed value. 

The rule doesn't help the person of more modest means who educates themselves and is fully capable of making their own investment decisions.

I have found getting tax values lowered tends to require a big fight, and they don't like doing it outside of their assessed year. 

Some initial teething issues because in the hood they assume you are a slum landlord and they have to fight for everything. 

We are in the process of fighting it, with good reason to do so, yet it shows on our credit report.

If he has experience like that, he'd be more than capable of looking after your cabinetry.I'd hate for you to be prejudice against someone for their disability.

Thats what I see most of the time.You are not doing something wrong you are trying to protect yourself and to avoid any title problems in the future.Basically you are buying the property that simple.I'd call the county clerk and ask about which site to use to search the records...that way you can do your own search not saying professionally but at least sometime you can find some liens on any property interested in like labor liens, child support, abstract judgments...etc could save you some time and $$$ by filtering your targeted properties before doing the title search through title abstractor.Some times I offer the former owners some time to leave like few weeks so I dont need to pay them alot and get them sign a short term lease with zero rent with waving their rights to fight any eviction and giving me the right to get the writ of possession right a way once the short term lease ends without giving them any eviction notice.Hope that helps.Good luck to all