But the the idea of a "side agreement" with the investor paying you a "wholesale fee" is violating licensing law, if you're referring to not being in contract. 

First of all, I´d recommend you have a look at:Flipping Houses: The Ultimate Step by Step GuideThe Ultimate Guide to Flipping Houses with No MoneyHow to Flip a House: The Ultimate Step by Step BlueprintIn terms of what to target, I would agree that it´s easier to avoid REOs and Foreclosures and focus instead on motivated sellers in the pre foreclosure, probate, divorce, code violation etc.categories.

If they are there less than a month you might be able to get the police to remove them on the basis of trespassing or because it violates fire code.

Fence maintenance, insurance, lawsuits, code violations, squatters, floods, dirt, mud, trash, illegal dumpers, property infringers ...what a pain:)

This doesn't violate the laws. 

It was a Zoo, and the City charged you an arm and a leg for any type of ordinance violations that they could possible think of, such as a $3,200.00 fine if your grass in the alley was over 1 1/2 " high.  

Thanks for the clarification Bill Gulley According to your post in this thread (and my interpretation is similar)http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/83/topics/8968..as long as there is no financing (and I am not financing) and the option contract doesn't go towards their payments then it is not a violation of the SAFE act and is not predatory. 

Meaning, your attorney screwed up IMO and used a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure but that violates foreclosure procedures as a secured creditor in real estate.

Seems like the standard remedies are either the owner provides an affidavit in place of a tenant estoppel, or write into the lease that failure to provide an estoppel on a sale event constitute a violation of lease. 

Once you start violating and changing that you have broken your "bible".