Call his bluff, first ask when these fees occurred, then once you have that information Ask for bank statements that show the transfer of the security deposit from the security deposit account to the main account to “pay” for late fees.  

Lastly Ill assume you have the land under control in one way or another and that other due diligence has occurred regarding environmental, title, etc.The next step for you is going to be find a local architect to put together a feasibility study to confirm you can get what you want out of the site this often happens prior to purchasing the site so if you are in the middle of some of the things above that's not too uncommon, you just want to have it under control in one way or another so that you don't have the site bought from under you while you are doing this. 

They are not exactly impartial because their pay occurs if you sell and/or buy.  

Get his insurance bond and license info and give it to your insurance company. get it fixed so you’ll have receipts for court and proof that damage didn’t occur because you didn’t fix it right away. 

What happens when maintenance occurs or life gets in the way and you want to hire a PM?

Personally, I have not noticed much difference networking locally or out-of-state, same process, and equally time consuming.For capex discussion, like you mentioned that occur in every market - locally and out-of-state.

As background, I subdivided my lot into tow lots and during this process which occurred last year also informed the town that I would be building one home on each of the lots the following year. 

When the bust occurs, the area can look like a ghost town/area. 

I just don't understand the rationale toward large scale rent control occurring across the nation other than legislators passing something that sounds good to voters but in reality has very little historical data showing it actually improves anything. 

Property managers are potentially liable for almost everything that occurs on property they manage.