We also added a new roof, demolished two large chicken coups in the backyard, built stairs up to the rear French doors and cleaned up the yard.Taking a look at the numbers, we purchased the house for a little under $160,000 and had a renovation budget of $25,000.

If you bawk at the $200 they charge you for a consultation, that will seem like chicken feed compared to lost rent, time and aggravation if you do not follow the lease in the process of removing them and have to start over.This is water under the bridge but may help you moving forward - did you every call this woman's previous landlord? 

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while but honestly was just too chicken because now it means, it’s on!

It's a tourist trap and their hot chicken is probably the worst of any of the local places.

Rented to a man once who was a maintenance man at a chicken farm.

Your plans should have been stamped with "not for construction", and your contract should have explicitly said "drawings are included for reference only, drawings are NOT issued for construction, should owner wish to use drawings for construction they may be purchased for $x plus any changes at our standard hourly rates" (something along theses lines that makes it very clear your intent).I would probably play chicken with them a little just to see if they back down, but no way would I show up and burn time/money in mediation/court in this case.

Though I get the chicken and egg if you need to prove you know what you're doing so you can get the $ to buy.   

We own old houses, if there is a backup and it isn't caused by the tenant doing something like flushing chicken bones (true story) then we will cut them some slack and teach them to avoid it happening again. 

@Justin Dao the chicken and the hen came first then the egg 😉 To answer your question, I would think you would want to have things lined up (ie there is an approval process) with your HML so you can strike like a cobra when the deal presents itself. 

They have already cleaned up the yard and purchased a chicken coop.