But, if you are in some sort of discussion with your potential JV partner, why not just ask him/her to explain it to you?

Then I called my agent and explained that I had never given permission to sign over her quote to anyone else and that I could send her anything in writing and would prefer to go with her quote.Escrow happened to be delayed for other reasons, so I have some wiggle room in trying to sort this out.

Is there some sort of solution where I can keep the old railing in place and make it safer without breaking the bank?

They are great projects but they do come with all sorts of strings attached.

I do not have any real estate investment experience but I am very motivated to get started.

A Stanford study revealed that over 75% of the ADUs built in San Jose between 2016 and 2020 did not have a permit and are therefore illegal housing units.The lengthy permitting process, high construction costs, and shortage of tradespeople are some of the factors motivating property owners and contractors to take on the risk of building, renting to tenants, and/or housing family & friends in an illegal unit.

@Jeremy Staggers Houston has plenty :) American Title Company of Houston/Patriot Title/Capital Title ... all of them have 10+ branches  and they do all sorts of things for investors (e.g. expedite title search, loan doc prep, double close, blind HUD etc) ..PM me if when you have a contract and would be more then happy to introduce you to one of them.

I always do options so I make sure to give my option check to the motivated seller the day I sign up the deal. 

Renting short term or long term will have some bearing on it but this isn't too far fetched to find a lender for this sort of thing.A small, local lender will be your HIGHEST probability of success when trying to find investor friendly lenders on investment properties.

Would you be willing to purchase a property with this sort of information?