For example, dairy farmers being behind the research of “Milk does a body good” campaign.

The lender did a "holdback" of funds, which will be released after the old deck is removed and a new deck is installed. 

In the off chance that they do care, you can try and negotiate with them and tell them you will sign a waiver releasing them if they pay some discounted amount. 

It is up to the leaving tenant to work it out with the remaining tenants about security deposits.Security deposits will be released to the remaining tenants upon their move out. 

If so, when your deal fell through, was a release of escrow deposit form signed, by you and the seller?

I would be wearing a protective body suit while doing this.

It will go into escrow and draws can be set to have the escrow company release to the contractor.

be careful in this arena, as a broker that played the foreclosure game starting in 2006, i found myself facing litigation several times when the sellers lender would not release for a short sale, or we were unable to get a second to release or take a loss. a couple times I had gotten letters from buyers attorneys claiming i did not properly represent the property, (never got sued they were frivolous attempts to push a hand)   but you could easily find yourself in court defending yourself.

BiggerPockets is getting ready to release the 2nd Editions of their Flipping Houses and Estimating Rehab Costs books...you'll find that between these books, many of your questions will be answered:http://www.biggerpockets.com/store

For those numerous titles with complications, such as inheritance issues, missing heirs, multiple entity transfers, separation of title rights, partial lien releases, etc., it’s much more complicated.I have been involved in many transactions in which lawyers differed as to what was needed to obtain clear title.