Your make some very good points and I will definitely proceed with caution from here on out. 

I’m not really sure how to proceed because it seems like there’s an inherent conflict of interest here for the contractor: they have an incentive to keep the estimate low to minimize the payout from the insurance carrier and win the bid from us.

My wife has suggested we sell the basement apartment as condo, using the proceeds (after some reno costs) to lower our monthly mortgage, but I am unsure what the tax implications of this would be.

He immediately initiated foreclosure proceedings.  

Also you might want to double check the tax court cases in regards to eating meals alone.

I need help.When I am searching for probate leads online or by going to court, what am I looking at and what am I looking for?

Here, a writ of possession is the order/process a bank goes thru to get possession (get occupants out) for a property they got back at foreclosure, from the court.  

. ;-)That says to me, if you evaluate your NY properties in a similar fashion to how you'd evaluate deals elsewhere (at least in the short-term), that should give you an idea of how to proceed.

All cash deal and my question is if we have the paperwork that proves the home was left to our seller will title accept this and push the deal through without her name on the deed or do we need to do probate court, lawyers etc to get the deed into our sellers name???? 

We take a look at some of the reactions towards the last week’s controversial Supreme Court ruling on Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v.