“the preparation of legal instruments and contracts by which legal rights are secured” is clearly an overly broad generalization, as that would literally include simple documents such as a Tenant Lease or a Note bearing Interest.Most FSBO sales occur w/o agents and are effected with an Offer To Purchase from unknown sources.A contractor creates BIDS for work and once accepted & signed, become contracts with a percentage deposit.Commerce per se would be brought to a standstill if the above assertion were true and we have sufficient impediments already.While @Dion DePaoli has an interesting background and kindly cites specific codes, he too is not practicing Law, so as many have suggested, seek professional Legal Counsel.

The balloon mortgage occurred on 10/2012.

Without BP - It would have never occurred to me to do this and I am very glad that I did.

It may (or may not) be possible to add and remove properties from the portfolio.The biggest disadvantage would occur if you wanted to divest of one of the properties under the portfolio mortgage.  

I have had some limited interaction with their police force due to accidents in front of my house and incidents down the street and I am less than impressed with their level of service.

When I lived in NC a long time ago the RE class I took, the teacher said that if there was a murder that occurred in the home, the agent could not tell the prospective buyers about it.

You would us it if adding, changing, or removing signatories, conditions, encompassed services or the description of premises (i.e. defining a garage or deck to be uniquely part of the premises covered by the lease).A letter of authorization / letter of consent is used to provide written proof of consent where the lease indicates an action is possible, but requires the landlords approval to occur.  

Set up cash reserves for each property so that when repairs and/or vacancies occur you won't be put into a tailspin financially.

In my experience clauses like this need to be pretty explicit in how and when things occur.  

They're used in multiple offer situations exclusively, so there's never a situation that occurs like you're presenting.I've bought houses for $10s of thousands less than I was willing to pay by using these effectively.