I agree with you in this situation, but recommending tenants contact the owners directly before dealing with the PM is preventing the PM from doing the job they've been hired to do.

You'll just get better at preventing them, and dealing with those you can't prevent.

I think it is their cute little trick to prevent their tenants from moving out.It's hard for their good tenants to find a new place to live if they can't get a landlord reference.

I copied the relevant section from Ohio law below For purposes of the immunity created by division (B)(1) of this section, reasonably necessary force to repel a trespasser from a building or other structure that is maintained as a permanent or temporary dwelling or to prevent a trespasser from making an unlawful entry into a building or other structure of that nature may include the taking of or attempting to take the trespasser’s life, or causing or attempting to cause physical harm or serious physical harm to the person of the trespasser, if the owner, lessee, or renter of real property or a member of the owner’s, lessee’s, or renter’s family who resides on the property has a reasonable good faith belief that the owner, lessee, or renter or a member of the owner’s, lessee’s, or renter’s family is in imminent danger of death or serious physical harm to person and that the only means to escape from the imminent danger is to use deadly force or other force that likely will cause physical harm or serious physical harm to the person of the trespasser, even if the owner, lessee, renter, or family member is mistaken as to the existence or imminence of the danger of death or serious physical harm to person.

I would not want to mess with the tax treatment of home ownership as a way to prevent a future bubble because it was never a cause in the first place.In fact, I would argue that our mutual distrust of government interference in markets would cause us to want the government to give home owners all the normal deductions that investors get.

Some states and/or local realtor boards are starting to prevent realtors from being on both sides of the transaction (Colorado where I am for instance prevents it and there is some movement in that direction).

So anything beyond that is unnecessary, unless it is required by law!

How will the scammers be prevented from accessing the database?

For REO, the bank is actually on title, and as such you will sometimes encounter deed restrictions preventing re-sale of the property for a certain period.

At 1.9% the risk of such "unnecessary losses" occurring in one in every 53 short sale transactions is estimated at an average of $41,500 per transaction."