Good on you for making that self-assessment and judgement not to be actively involved. 

But nothing says your criteria can't allow for some flexibility and allow you to use your professional judgement to make exceptions on some cases.

Are there any liens, judgements, fines or other payments owed to city?

What you'll want to do it send them a collection letter, then, if/when they don't pay you file for a judgement for all the existing fees + fines + court costs. 

I find in this situation there’s often undisclosed liens, judgements, taxes etc.

Let go of your own self-judgements for the past, which doesn't even exist anymore, and start telling yourself your new story of wisdom and success.

It doesn't matter what the story is, this my hard and fast rule that has saved me several times.Don't buy a property in an LLC without attorney oversight, and a judgement search.Good luck!

Yes you can try to get judgement against them in court but regardless of the state doing that will not help your financial problems in a timely way.

However C areas do offer the lowest price point and perhaps the biggest upside potential if you choose wisely and predict the path of progress accurately, so you have to strike a balance that only you can really make a judgement call on.

In my particular case I carry vacancy (personally I use about 8%, which is about 1 month loss so adjust accordingly based on your market and your history with the property), manager (about 10%), maintenance (based on lawn care, pest control, average of miscellaneous expenses over the years), city utilities (water, sewer, and trash only because the units are not individually metered yet for billing tenants), reserves I would weigh this heavily at first until you can get at least 6 months of your expenses tucked away or at least 6 months of your PITI payments (use your judgement on age and life expectancy of your building.