It is important to note that these discussions are preliminary. 

Thanks all for your answers - yes I am investigating.

Also, since I started searching, I see some listing agents say, "preliminary site plan already approved."

Get on the phone and do some investigating of service models.

It sure would be nice if cities would hire/contract with companies that investigate and turn over a list of illegal listings with proof and they simply kept 10-20% of the fines.

Then you can use what you learn to apply that to brokerages you investigate!

Yes, my buyers get copies of signatures from former owners or my skip tracing report and an affidavit from a private investigator about his own findings about the former owners.Cheers, keep motivating because we cannot let the government keep getting these properties! 

I know my Private investigator could find you.

@Daniel Sherman luckily we got through to close with the original insurer but as they started doing their investigation they determined that the partial cast iron piping was a problem, and then 2 months into the policy cancelled citing age of the house.

This seems to be a repeating theme, so I will definitely investigate.