Rick, Your property is your business, and every decision should protect that investment.

As others have mentioned they will be putting a lot of time and effort into this so it is important to have an agreement that protects them as well and allows them to do their job.

Just because the costs might be in the furture does not warrant not budgeting for those known expensesThen there is the misc costs of asset protection, bookkeeping, unexpected utilities (such as between tenants (tenant turn over) or failure not attributable to the tenant such as slab leak).  

I use a channel manager (OR) and it has damage protection built in.

Look at median household incomes, look at market economy base and diversification, look at what's being done to protect and grow economic performance, just run the #'s and the message should be crystal clear. 

People will start to realize that a law designed to protect against criminal international money laundering captures more innocents than anything. 

It's been a frustrating experience, but I knew it was necessary to protect the property and move forward.Amid those challenges, I also started a kitchen renovation in my unit.

A well written management contract should clearly spell out what is expected of both the PMC and the owner, to PROTECT both and avoid misunderstandings.

How can I best protect the seller as well as myself?

It could provide the belief that an unpermitted unit built next month will get protected.