Also, do I keep the furniture assuming the taxpayer wants to redeem or trash it?

Taxpayers have extended redemption rights starting from when you take possession of the property, extending for three years after that. 

The IRS requires that the same tax paying entity be the one selling and the one buying.

Another option might be to see if a particular county has a list of the taxpayers who pay the highest property tax.

You never brought the rent into income since you are presumably a cash basis reporting taxpayer, so not having taken it into income you would have no basis to declare a loss.

Opportunity Zones can be used to minimize tax payments or even reduce to zero.Opportunity Zones were created under the TCJA to; Allow U.S. investors to defer all 2018 capital gains for eight years if the profits are reinvested and held in an Opportunity ZoneLower the amount of capital gains taxes resulting from the sale of a capital asset by 10% or 15% if the proceeds therefrom are held for five or seven years, respectively, in an Opportunity Zone project.Provide for a full exemption from capital gains taxes on all future capital gains on the invested funds if an investment is held for ten years following investment.

Two of the safe harbors that can help you deduct improvements are below:1) 2500 de minimis safe harbor.the safe harbor applies to amounts paid during the tax year to acquire or produce what the regs call a “unit of property” (UOP), you must meet these requirements: (1)you need to have written accounting procedures treating as an expense for non-tax purposes amounts paid for property costing less than a specified dollar amount (which will be 2500 for you), or with an economic useful life of 12 months or less;.(2) the taxpayer treats the amount paid for the property as an expense on its books and records in accordance with its accounting procedures. ( do this on your bookkeeping software or whatever you utilize)(3) the amount paid for the UOP doesn't exceed $2,500. as substantiated by the invoiceNote: The cost for the Unit of Property includes l additional costs (for example, delivery fees, installation services, or similar costs) if these additional costs are included on the same invoice with the property.2) Small taxpayer safe harbor: To be eligible for the safe harbor, the total amount of improvements for the property for the tax year may not exceed the lesser of $10,000 or2% of the property's unadjusted basis.If the total amount paid exceeds the safe harbor threshold, the safe harbor does not apply to any amounts spent during the tax year.

If you want to save all those tenants in a triplex you probably will have to  pony up the difference yourself rather than dumping them as burden to the taxpayers.

And I do agree with his previous statements that these banks and lenders shouldn't get a bailout with taxpayer money because they made bad decisions in the past.

We think this is a huge mistake and this is going to come out of the tax payers pocket.