This is an emergency situation.Regarding further protection, it gets messy and confusing.

To break this down...To get the benefit of REPS, it is a two part test.1) more than 50% of hours AND over 750 hours in real property trades or businesses. spouses cannot combine time to meet these thresholds, one spouse must hit this on their own.

Had to cancel my trip in the last minute as my wife is in a medical emergency.

I keep 100k in real estate reserves and have another 200k in lines of credit should I need to tap for emergencies.

So before you get ready to attempt to rip your Landlord a new one, first go take it up with the local taxing authority, then go have it out with the insurance industry, then gripe to the neighborhood HOA (if applicable), then maybe settle your disputes with Home Depot/Lowes and any and all trade contractors.

I suppose that requires a second (or third or fourth) opinion, but if he's right, where can I pull cash from to both complete our primary home, and refill the RE emergency fund I'm currently depleting?

Long term success means having a team of CPAs, Attorneys, Title Companies, GCs, trades, roofers, cleaners, lenders, and so many others on your team as an investor.Good luck. 

when lehigh was put in they punched in roads to 250,000 lots.. one can google earth it today and see blocks of lots with like 2 or 5 homes per 50 lots.. lots trade there when its good times for 20 to 25k and bad times 2 to 10k  like a ping pong ball.. the GFC took down many land plays even out west..

If you don't have any liquid reserves, you should build up 6 months of expenses as an emergency fund (in case you get laid off, disabled etc).

He wasn't giving into the state and local governments mandate for employees to be forced to wear masks, get vaccines, etc and he started getting "threats" saying that he could be taken to court and have assets seized if he continues "breaking the emergency laws" during covid time.That could be viewed as an extreme example, but things like this worry me as I have my own company and employees.