I'm an newby investor and just got my first property under contract.  An adjacent lot has a dilapidated home scheduled for Dec 5 demo by codes dept.  Codes chief tells me neither the homeowner nor the lender USAA I believe in this case have reached out to him for any remedial effort. Codes chief says he'd have to see bids from licensed contractor & POF to halt the demo.  I believe there's compelling value in my purchasing the adjacent property to package together with mine & sell to developers (my structure is worth demoing also).  My situation seems a bit like this

http://shortsalesuperstars.com/group/spsselectporfolioservicinginc/...

Since the adjacent property is most valuable to me demolished, should I allow codes dept to demolish it and only then pursue the bank/property owner or to my surprise would it somehow be better to try & make a concerted effort to get hold of a loss mitigation person at the bank tomorrow on some crazy premise the owner might have no recourse to keep the property?  I don’t know much about the laws surrounding laying waste of the collateral being a violation of the standard deed of trust.  Am I correct to think the scenario would still be considered a short sale or might there be a different legal process in lieu of “laying waste of the collateral”?  Best I can tell, the mortgage only has 70k to payoff and the dirt for this property may actually be worth 65k (tax assessment of 30k for structure & 65k for dirt).  I’m retrieving the mortgage docs later today to make sure the $70k isn’t just a 2nd mortgage.  If the borrower is current on payments, can one even be sure the lender would even initiate any action?