He has offered to sign the properties over to me and then collect a percentage of rent from each until he is paid a certain amount for each one. 

Either use an online rent collection service such as Cozy or require the tenant to mail a check or money order to you.

I was sent to a collection agency for the fines and have been paying them for over a year.

I respect the biggerpockets community insight and the collective experience here is unrivaled. 

I'll think I'll enjoy it a bit more once I stop paying and start collecting rent!

It was mostly a disappointment for many reasons but what it doesn't touch on is, when collecting a deposit from a  tenant buyer, what happens when they decide to exercise the option?

It needs to have credit score (if reason) or others factors (active collections, etc.) and name and contact info for the credit bureau used. 

Your resident manager is either a blessing or a total curse in this scenario...............if he/she is inherited you might just arbitrarily have to put someone new in that spot-the temptation is pretty strong from how I imagine rents are being collected and reported. 

Since you have a few free and clear, the others have a lot of equity, you should be in a “safe” position, and I would wait for higher appreciation and “do nothing” but just keep collecting rent at the moment...

There are some $950 rents in areas I would not consider going at 12 AM to collect the rent, so don't use $$$ as your only gauge.