If you know a local commercial real estate broker, they can guide you to attorneys or perhaps share their boilerplate form for you as a starting point.As with anything, it is wise to pay a little for legal advice ahead of time as preventative medicine than to pay attorneys dearly to get out of trouble.

I used to offer tenants up to $100 rent credit each year (depending on size of yard) if they wanted to send receipts for grass seed, weed & feed, crabgrass preventer, hardwood mulch, etc., (no labor, just materials) but not since I bought out-of-town rentals and use a property manager.

(I also added $1500 a yr for preventative maintenance.)It's an excellent strategy & its one I adhered to back in the days of (needing) financing (but similarly I could afford the annoying monthly loss).

They did change them as agreed, but they also did a lot of damage to the property, which might have been prevented if I had made regular visits.

So, "No", as Mortgagee you can't go in and build a deck or do home repairs but you can fix a hole in the roof to prevent damage or mow the lawn to prevent a lien.

Is there a local Crime Prevention group for the neighborhood?

I work for a large non-profit credit counseling agency as a Quality Assurance Specialist who evaluates the calls of counselors who provide foreclosure prevention counseling.

My question is, Could I have prevented the short sale from being entered under the Hafa program in the beginning?

Sure the state law doesn't say (in Texas and Wyoming or where ever else) that I can't turn off utilities but it also doesn't prevent a sympathetic judge from siding with the tenant.

Look up "Rich Dad Poor Bank", my close friend wrote this book and is essentially waging a war against the banks. haha One more thing before my A.D.D. prevents me from remembering, you - and everyone else - should look into ING accounts.