The prior note owner accepted payments knowing that the borrower was deceased. 

Painter ... your friend the landlord could send a friendly reminder to the new tenant via text message or email that they should contact the city to turn the water on under their name prior to moving in so it will be already on when they move in.

Along the same lines, is there a way to find out when a home is "pre-foreclosure" so you can help to sell that property prior to it going into the foreclosure process?

Make sure you understand cap expenses prior to purchase.  

At my start of getting into rental real estate (prior to discovering Bigger Pockets unfortunately) I found a duplex property in a better town 20 min closer on the commuter rail to Boston.

Is this actually better handled as a sublease and should we void the addendum and instead sign some sort of sublease acknowledgement and send that to the prior tenants?

If they are not, you may want to mandate those "bad" tenants be removed prior to closing. 

You have to approve any lender to check your credit prior to them doing a hard inquiry and if you do, those inquiries stay on your credit report for TWO years.  

Both cases issues were not bought to landlords attention prior to inspection to give tenant a benefit of doubt.Please suggest who needs to bear the cost as window replamemt might be an expensive cost.Landlord is trying to sell the property and feels condensation issue if reported at early stage, could have been taken care of by proper re-seal or tradesmen advice.Given advance notice on A/C situation, issue would have been fixed rather than showing up in inspection reports.

Prior the 1970s I have heard and seen that building permits et all were somewhat "loose" as they say.