Certificate of Good Standing you request from the Secretary of State.

Make friends increase your circle of influence - Hire a private detective - they are good at finding people (give his a piece of the profits)Check the death notices or search government record for certificates of death, check the obituary for next of kin - contact them. 

The VA never registered the house, or paid the fee, so I have to wait for them to do that. 2) I wasn't aware that because it is bank owned, I was responsible for getting the conditional certificate of occupancy and fire inspection.

As a total newbie, I am getting into RE field and flipping sounds awesome to me.However I have a feeling that without RE appraisal or Interior Design certification I can't FLIP/REHAB houses or do RE properly.I would love to ask you.

It would actually be much easier if I didn't live there since removing the use permit (which is very easy) makes the zoning the primary use determinant, and expands opportunities for all sorts of other things.Glad you feel the same way about LEED Gold-- I have the checklist all signed off with the points calculated, but didn't think it was worth it to pay for full certification.

That will tell you how much effort you want to put in.Did you get a deed or just a tax sale certificate?

Here my understanding is that demand is so high they can be full quite quickly after certificate of occupancy is issued but other markets are different and your construction costs are much lower. 

So, while my research did not find any rental restrictions for STRs I did not discover that they couldn't give me a business license (before we bought the house.)After talking with the City Planner about the situation he told me I could go through the same process that a hotel or B&B does (approval process for Certificate of Conditional Use) but it basically comes down to a City Council meeting which is a public hearing.We discussed the fact that there already were people operating STRs in the city (and obviously not paying taxes to the city since they would not have a business license). 

Self-certification alone (by checking a box) without any other knowledge of a person’s financial circumstances or sophistication is not sufficient to form a “substantive” relationship.This relationship must be established prior to showing the potential investor an opportunity.  

Or an elevation certificate can also get it lower.