You can use a chemical de-glosser instead of sanding.Some varnishes back then had lead in them too, not just the paint. http://www.diylife.com/2010/03/08/how-to-degloss-a-surface-for-paint-prep/You need to use a contractor that is RRP certified.

Many investors do that for their LLCs There will be someone there to sign for certified mail if needed.

Calling for Dave Van Horn - our resident junior lien expert - to contribute here :)

I've thought about starting a progress thread, but I don't want to just add to the noise and detract from the quality posts of the seasoned experts.

Looking forward to the experts answers here as we have a large family and weird issues like this crop up from time to time.

There are a ton of experts in this forum and there are number of contributors like Brandon Turner who are "master bloggers".

I'm not an expert on inherited IRAs (hence my repeated recommendations to find a CPA), but is my understanding she must have started taking RMDs by the end of 2012 and that she will have until 2016 to empty the inherited IRA.

If the cracks are running the length of the boards it's probably the wood shrinking from drying out.If the cracks are running across multiple boards horizontally there may be some foundation issues that is actually slowly tearing the wood apart.Either way I would probably have a foundation expert to come analyze the situation.

My question to the experts here...

I would suggest identifying a few key markets, like those I mentioned above, and then talking to people who have invested there and to the local experts to get a more up to date report of what's going on.Can you move up your investment date from September?