Should I have the bill sent to the rental and hope that the tenant pays it or should I simply pay it myself and add the average tothe monthly rent?

I'd love to help you but completely understand if you want someone intimately involved in those towns specifically.:-)

I know that I will completely take advantage of that person in the negotiation process since they have zero clue what is customary and to be expected in the process.

I'm a complete newbie to the real estate game and currently entrenched in the education phase of investing. 

@Michael S. regarding our financial analysis - we considered everything including a complete gut rehab with new plumbing and electrical, but we did not consider that it might be a total loss, or that our gut job could also involve structural repair.  

Thank you biggerpockets community for the instruction and support that has allowed us to be in the position to need to ask these questions.  My wife and I bought an apartment building just outside of Houston with a ha...

When I originally ready this I was completely shocked.

If this is a SFH with in law, the tenant has the right to move back into the unit at the prior rent except for any normal increases after capital improvements and rehabilitation of the units have been completed. 

I am an Eagle Scout, I have an architectural engineering degree, and great with numbers and have completed a renovation in the past on a property I am holding as an income property in Rhode Island.

On the legal side-If a contract is written up and the MLS states a fact about the house that isn't corrected or addressed you (if all paperwork is legal and properly done) can enforce those facts and have them completed by the seller and enforced by the court.