Owner must install a fire alarm system inside property.At each manual fire alarm box a sign shall be mounted near the box that states: IN CASE OF FIRE SOUND ALARM AND CALL FIRE DEPARTMENT (or call 911)No pull station inside rental property.

After talking with the zoning department, I determined that there is not an "existing non-conforming" application on file. 

The other thing to do is to check with the permitting department to see if an building permits were issued.  

The planning department would be your first one to call and ask those questions.

Do I just call the REO department and make an offer?

I did a 3-year corporate stint managing a marketing department with a multi-million dollar budget, but I'm not too fond of 9-5.

Larger real estate firms will have in-house legal departments to handle this but the truth of the matter is the actual concept and procedures are quite simple once understood and all real estate owners  would benefit from this but fail to implement the systems early on.

Our government is run extremely inefficiently, and there's not one department that covers real estate, etc., though it would save taxpayers billions if there were! 

You can look those up with the local planning department if there are major redevelopment projects from roads and sidewalks to building renovations.  

TCOs are through your building department, and at least locally you can ask your inspector for this.