Landscapping and Inspections Questions

[Anthony Conte]

hello all.

My 1st post on this forum.  Wondering if someone can help me out with a couple of tax questions I have.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

1.  Recently bought a property and as part of the 'Option Period' I had a few inspections completed.  These inspections had nothing to do with the mortgage company, title company or the insurance company.  These inspections were purely due diligence on my part.  Normally Inspections need to be expensed over the time of the loan since the bank would request it.  But these Inspections were not tied to the loan.  Should these costs still be amortized over the time period of the loan or expensed?

2.  At another property, I removed all of the grass and weeds from the front yard, laid down fabric to prevent weeds from coming up and then laid down decomposed granite.  Should this be capitalized or expensed?  Based on what I can see researching the web, this should be expensed as I didn't add any structures or even pants/trees.  This was truly (in simple terms) a replacement of grass with decomposed granite.  It was expensive, that is what cautions me from just expensing it.  Expensed or Capitalized?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Anthony