The buyer surrendered his earnest money to the seller per the sales contract and the seller had to start all over again to sell the property.Since my escrow closed in the late afternoon rather than the late morning (for perfectly valid reasons), I had a long day that day.

In my area of NY I would always try to get them to sign a surrender of property letter with an exact date and time they will surrender the property back to you.

Get a surrender of property signed as well (most junkies will take money for this easily.

Just get someone else in there .. get it in writing if you can that they have surrendered the property 

You might have to surrender and find a local agent, look on the real estate signs for the name of agents doing a lot transactions in your areas of interest, do your research on them to find a reputable one and maybe you can find a property that is currently considered an outlier.

The moment you created a deadline, let it pass, then set a new one you completely surrendered whatever leverage you had left.We have all made mistakes, at least anyone who has been at it for a while, so you are in good company.  

Their wholesaler gave me a copy of the notice to quit dated 10/20/19 and the squatter was supposed to surrender the premises on 10/27/19 by 5:00pm which obviously didn't happened.

One book i couldn’t put down was The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer.

Yes you can make improvements and rent it out but first you must gain legal possession by either asking the last title holder of record to surrender the house to you or wait 6 months then file and ejectment.   

Code=PR&Value=92.107">92.107</a>, the landlord shall refund a security deposit to the tenant on or before the 30th day after the date the tenant surrenders the premises.