@Patty Tran @Casey J Burkhead nailed it.

Can anyone help nail down the legality of this?

I went to the house after just to look at the work done, and the person who did it just took new shingles and nailed them on top of the old ones with the nail on top of the shingles.

Most attempt to daisy chain and are not polished.  

When the plumber came to take a look he found a screw and nail lodged in the disposal.  

@Michael Le you nailed it - great answer

It definitely nails why there has been limited success.

Ryan Dossey  Ryan hit the nail on the head most sellers are not sophisticated.. they look at that long winded inspection clause and think legal ease and they get their backs bowed up.If you simply have a Due diligence that is one sentence.. your not buying some complicated multi million dollar property here your buying some low end SFR..Your Em is probably very small as well.. your just way over thinking this given the size an d scope of the transaction..

I'm still trying to nail down a time to meet and see the inside of the house.So this is what I know I "think" I should do:1)Possibly agree to a purchase price of 115K over as long a period as possible2)Get an interest rate as low as possible, preferably 0%.3)It was formerly rented for about $1000 a month, so I don't know if I should set the monthly payments to that or try to get them as low as possible ($500) so I can have a long contract period4)Maybe offer a down payment & if so how much?

The thing I would add is to make sure you nail down your adjusted basis as that will allow you to calculate your tax liability.