I would give them a deadline of 30 days to make it right or take them to small claims court and file a complaint with the State board.I would also go after the previous owner in small claims court, demanding compensation for 15 days of rent, reimbursement of the November rent, as well as the cost of cleaning and repairs after his move out.

I can't quite put down 10% yet on account of closing costs/emergency fund, but would you say it's in my best interest to go after an FHA loan immediately, with less than 10% down, and try to beat that deadline?

However, 4 Coastal counties here on the MS Gulf Coast (where I live) the deadline has been extended to 2010.

Unfortunately, these days before the IRS deadline all good accountants are very busy.

A deadline needs to be created by the insurance company in order to a benchmark and get your attention otherwise everyone would drag there feet.

Sure, I can take longer but also don't want to suffer from analysis/paralysis so the deadline is more "self imposed".

We have only had issues collecting on a claim once where we submitted a claim wrong and didn't get the correction in before the deadline to submit a claim had expired.

Since the tax deadline is already gone, I am interested to know what you did. 

And, to make matters worse--I don't have a leg to stand on because it's my side that can't perform and come to the table with the loan and we're already past the loan objection deadline. 

Given your 18 month deadline, this seems to be the safest and most probable route to reach your goal.