It gives you much more leverage if you ever have to take your tenant to court (which you will) because the judge will ask to see the lease.

This way, if you ever get to a situation where you end up in court with a tenant, all the specifics are there "front and center" in the lease.

The goal, IMO, is for state consumer protection agencies to be proactive rather than react... do something before the cases get to court, so Judge Robert Gibson doesn't have to make comments like (alleged) "It’s just pure evil" about activities that should be caught with a few good preventative techniques (e.g. web crawlers, automated scripts running simple heuristic filters, etc.) and some part time Consumer Protection supervision.

You'll need to file a proof of claim as soon as possible to the bankruptcy court to secure payment on your debt.

The courts would probably say you have no loss - you paid rent and got use of the property.

So check the foreclosure procedure for New York, but I believe in New York state is a long process (a year or more) and judicial (conducted in court.)

Ask if there are any special assessments coming up, if there have been in any in the past, any big projects looming (parking lot repaving, roof work, pool/tennis court repairs, etc.).

At that point the county post the info in the news paper and it goes to county court (2 1/2-3 months) which in that case it goes to auction at the county steps (supposedly) if nobody buy its at auction (which in my experience nobody ever does) then it becomes your property.

The reason why we chose this route over Land Contract is simply because our lease agreement specifically states that the homeowner is now responsible for everything from repairs to taxes and even insurance, but in the court of law we have a lease agreement which means we can evict in 45 days rather than go through the LC forfeiture process which can take many months and a lot of losses in profits.

I would suggest just reading bigger pockets, and the court house.