It is truly remarkable the amount of frugal muscles I have developed.Thank you too @Mindy Jensen for having guests and helping spread the word of financial independence.Not all heroes wear capes, some have podcasts! 

If I was you I would retain a lawyer for your court appearance and give him a heads up on the bigger picture.

At that point, we'd like to quit our day jobs and "retire" but still retain ownership of the assets.

I really need to retain some of this money.

The retaining wall on the property (mentioned we bought it on a hill with view) was going bad. 

Does any one have experience in buying occupied foreclosed property ( SF) at an auction What is the process to evict or retain ( lease) the occupant Which one is more preferred ?

This Attorney lost that law suit which was for incompetence representing a Buyer.One of the things we want to accomplish is to allow information to be disseminated in to the public records so that anyone who chooses to use that Attorney has the ability to conduct a public search before they retain him.Without these cases, he record looks incredibly good as a practicing Attorney for over 2 decades and no disciplinary action against him.We want to proceed not just to get Kevin's money back, but also to hopefully allow others to have that ability to find information to make a wise choice on selecting an Attorney. 

I know a homeowner in an HOA where the HOA keeps forcing him to repair a little retaining wall that keeps getting hit by cars/trucks backing up into it due to being in a cul-de-sac.

As @Dan Vleck stated, rent the house without the garage or retain storage rights in the basement, etc. 

If that's the case, you could start interviewing architects once you've got an accepted offer but don't actually retain them until you've actually closed and can walk property with them.