Plus they require higher downpayment % that I would like to avoid.

Even if you're not positive you'd win in court, it's going to tie up the property and the earnest money, which should be enough to strike a new deal with the seller that avoids that...

The one I lived in has been rented for the past 5 years, so I can't avoid capital gains. 

And never give a tenant/ project manager a credit card ( I pretty much added that in for myself- anyone reading this with any common sense already knows that) So the purpose of this post is two fold- One- I would love some advice on how I can get my credibility back with this tenant and avoid this every single month until his lease expires in June.

This will help you avoid expensive, possibly incriminating mistakes.

Many things can avoid legal advice but whenever I have a doubt I will seek legal advise. 

(This could be doing real estate closings, evictions, collections, creating notes, doing entity work like operating agreements for LLCs, etc)Are there areas of real estate law that you try to avoid?

That'll be a higher rate than your 1st lien, however, you avoid the fees of doing a cash-out refi which is several thousands of dollars. 

I tend to avoid those areas but I know of people that make good money. 

I installed tamper resistant outlets (don’t cost much more) but it’s safer for kids incase they want to play with the outlet(avoid).