House Hacking Tax Form 8829

[Juan Rodriguez]

Hello everyone,

I’ve been lurking the forums for some time and using the search bar to find this but to no avail.

It’s a house hacking tax question.

Anyway, a bit of background on my particular scenario: I bought my first property on July 2020 and I'm currently house hacking it (1 year lease started December 15th 2020). It's a 3 level townhouse with an HOA in Woodbridge, VA. My girlfriend and I live in the basement of the property, we rehabbed a bit, but more importantly there's drywall separating the lower level (basement) with the upper 2 levels so there's no common areas being shared. There is a lease in place and it's for 1 year, there's no AirBnb going on, just a regular rental (technically "boarder income" as I still live here). I want to eventually use this rental income to buy another property in the future and piggy back off rentals, basically BRRRR. You know it's funny, my girlfriend is actually studying to become a CPA and we cannot wrap our heads around this. As a matter of fact, I've also reached out to local CPAs and they don't seem to understand what I'm referring to.

What I’m getting at:


In the forum posts that I’ve read from CPAs, particularly @Linda Weygan the general concensus is Schedule A for the mortgage portion, and Schedule E for the rental portion, but Linda Weygan seems to also mention Form 8829. Which, from our limited understanding, can only be attached to Schedule C (it says so right there on top of Form 8829) and not only that, what would one put on form 8829 to substantiate “business use of my home” if it’s regular house hacking? In fact, I reached out to local CPAs like it’s suggested when dealing with stuff like this and they very quickly shut down 8829 as “Yeah no, that’s a business, nothing to do with what you’re doing.” And they only mention Schedule E, no mention of Schedule C (which is what I might be incorrectly assuming has to be attached to Form 8829). So normally my reaction was, “The people at biggerpockets probably know some secrets or technicalities that other “good rated” CPAs in my area wouldn’t recognize.” (maybe because Real Estate/House Hacking is not something they deal with specifically). So what is it that I’m missing? At any rate, thank you so much for your precious time dealing with a rookie like me.

Best regards, Juan