Because I would put zero weight into that.  

My objective is to build a relationship with an accountant who can point my wife and I in the right directions in order to lessen our tax burden as much as possible. 

If your partner is not ethical you could have real issues, and there is also the possibility for one partner to not pull as much weight as the other partner.

Simple because in a court of law the contract holds no weight due to it being an illegal service to begin with.So the scorched earth response Jim K said he would do it not only impossible in this situation, but also illegal if he actually succeeded in get an 'eviction' on her record.

While some states may have say a 12 month redemption period, it is lessened or eliminated if the property was vacant at the time of the foreclosure auction.

They are also a retail store (the only retail in the building) and they have been putting goods for sale out on the sidewalk during the day.I don’t like it, but they are a long term tenant and I don’t want their first impression of me to be a jerk trying to throw my weight around...How should I approach this issue?

_______ What breeds/weight?

I'm hesitant to pour a ton of self leveling compound due to added weight on the foundation may cause more settling damage. 

Since you will be on both the buy/sell side - you would then be paying 100% of the transfer tax.I suppose you would have to weight the cost of creating the LLC(which includes the additional cost to transfer it to an LLC) to the cost of the umbrella package and weighting the pros/cons of how each strategy will protect you.

Regardless of how long they have been there they are dead weight.