Do I replace and make it brand new or do I just skip?

You can expect that when you have a number of contractors go over a project, that some will point out things that may have been skipped by other bidders; you then would have to consider whether to add those things to your scope of work or not.Before anybody can figure out how expensive the repairs will be, the list of repairs needed (i.e. a scope of work) first has to be defined.

It is critical to check them out and to not skip steps.

I suppose you can worry about the liabilities you discuss, but real life risks are more along the line of the contractor taking your money and skipping town.

My employer has a 175,000 SF building where the tenant just skipped out overnight.

I would likely skip that part of the criteria or maybe try with and without to see which response rate is better.

I honestly think that the best way to learn the biz is to skip back and read from someone right here in the forum.

That’s when my business partner and I began skip tracing phone numbers for potential sellers that were on our direct mail list and calling them directly.

Google "skip tracing".

Many of these people can't be reached and you would need to skip trace them when their letters come back undeliverable.