My husband and I have lived/held/flipped 3 properties over the last 8 yrs without any of the business materials.

You did not force issue on late fee so you basically gave up that option, do not try to collect retroactively.As a Realtor you are going to be held at a higher standard.You inherited the house so you inherited the debt for the deposit, Do a google search and read the laws in your state concerning security deposits you could end up paying him several times that amount if you do not do this correctly.

The owner knows that the title co. that once held the deed/loan had embezzled money and was shut down by the IRS.

She has gotten offers in the past for the property, but she has held onto it for over a year and a half.

The true by law requirement is focused upon the tenant's deposits being held in an separate account and employees can't be trusted. 

We got around it once when we needed a mortgage by talking to the bank that held the loan and getting the loan directly from them after the foreclosure, but their agreement was, of course, only if it did not go to another party at the auction.  

You need to know how much money is held in escrow for the renters. 

With aging fuse boxes necessarily comes the questions of aging metal-armored cable, with-which comes the questions of a faulty ground contact in that cable.  

Of course, within notes there are easier and more difficult approaches such as buying up performing notes from an investment provider (turn-key) to shopping for discounted, non-performing notes.In a perfect world, one would create a portfolio that has a nice balance of different properties and notes of various types in different markets to achieve diversity - as well as perhaps some traditional equities/funds, maybe some precious metals as a hedge, etc.A budget of $100K could most likely be placed into one or two key investments.  

I like #3 as well.My wife and I did option #1 back in 2006, except we held onto the home and now rent it out.