The tenant was suing in small claims court for $5K and had video evidence of the horrendous state of their apartment.

Once the deed is recorded and you have a copy you can show the county, you can provide that as evidence and begin the STR application process even if the "automated" systems still show the old owner's name.

Are they maintaining the home and providing me evidence of that?

Sealing can work but there is always a risk of residual evidence appearing later.If the fire was confined to the attic it will be far easier and less invasive to deal with.  

This post is enough evidence for them to get a court order to take it.Step 2. 

Do I pass it down to him with evidence?

I definitely want to fix the bathroom since that's officially broken and needs repair, but I think they can live with the door situation for a while (as made evident by the fact that she's been living there for 2 years).I'm not too concerned about spending the actual money, but from the perspective of managing the property, I'm curious if I should try to have my first year be cash flow positive, since I've lucked out and had 0 vacancy so far. 

Take photos of the Comps, I assume that these Comps are also large acreage properties.That way, you have documentary evidence about the Comparables. 

In today's digital world, we are so used to simply searching the internet and picking something from the first few results of search, that we often joke around in the tech community that the best place to hide a crime evidence would be the second page of google search.

This is creating a backlog of potential listings.No one knows what local RE prices will do, but there is a lot of evidence that there is a backlog of listings.