Recording of the substitute trustee - this too is a part of the foreclosure process in many cases and is a fee passed on to the borrower.So, there is really only one fee there which is questionable and that could just be slang term being used and is most likely legit.The problem you may encounter here is that one demand was for a reinstatement and the other is simply the responsibility of the Borrower per the documents.  

I suppose the term may be slang for the sake of conversation where they are saying, you can put your contract with them and they will wait for the third party (end buyer) to be produced before preparing documents but I would not personally refer to that as an "Open" deed, since the only party to be added would be the party who steps in as Buyer or Asignee.

In some of the cities I invest, the city requires ownership documents before they would turn the water on.

This refinancing activity slows down the purchase pipelines as well.You cannot prevent this but you can discourage it by adding per diem costs for being late similar to new home builders on your purchase contracts, have your agent prescreen lenders of the buyers to make sure their timelines and how far they have on the buyers documents/file to see if this will occur again in the future.You'll be amaze how fast people work when the per diem is 200 dollars per day.

I suppose that's because they knew the new rent is really the going rate for this kind of apartment.As for the deposits, we had the tenants fill out a condition report at the time we closed and that became the document their deposit was based on. 

A simple eviction could be ~1.5 months, complicated/appeals/etc. could be 2.5-3 months but that's most likely your fault for not having the rental and/or business license, poorly written lease or poor documentation of payments. 

I've heard of people putting a provision on a seller's document that it is subject to inspection.  

Keep accurate records and then you can show these to new lenders.Even with the loans you will want to have an attorney prepare the documents.  

With your company doing all those searches, do you provide an all inclusive title report document for that days upcoming auction for a fee?  

If you want to avoid realtor fees, you'll need to have an real estate attorney or a settlement company attorney (also a real estate attorney) draw up the terms for the seller financing and the purchase contract along with the note and mortgage documents that will be made and signed by both parties at closing.