Be prepared to play 20 questions when/if you get through to them and get a loss mitigator on the phone.

All other liens go by recording date absent mitigating factors such as subordination agreements, etc.

Also, is there a way to mitigate a risk?

Initially - yes, but only to mitigate the possibility of the home not selling right away, reducing my risk.

A real estate loss mitigation specialist in your area may be able to help you.

The only way to mitigate risk is to increase knowledge.

This is a question you definitely want to ask a lender, maybe even get preapproved up front if possible so as to mitigate that issue.

@Dave Friedman  One thing that mitigates their liability is the tree was not a hidden defect. 

I actually hadn't thought of that Mike; most of our tenants now are blue and white collar, and we have thermostats that we can actually set the high point (vs. buying a hard coded 72 or 73 degree, etc. that way if we get an older person, or we have a colder than usual apartment we can tweak it up to 73 or 74 thereby "mitigating" the chances of them doing some "low life" stuff like putting ice on it or attempting to bypass.

Actual use, past and current business model an practice, correspondence with your professionals, nature and source of the sale, all can be used to demonstrate your intent.If you want to mitigate the pain of having to pay ordinary income + self employment on your flips you could adopt a slower model where you buy rehab rent refi re-evaluate your intent and finally 1031 (someone help me with an acronym for 1031 that begins with "r").