Tax Implications on Out of Pocket Insurance Claims

[Jason Dukhi]

I own an investment property in Florida. Hurricane Irma had damaged the roof and through the advice of my property managers we did some patchwork repairs in 2017. Unfortunately, while the house was being listed for sale in 2018 the patchwork repairs did not hold up and we began to experience leaking in the house which required the replacement of the roof and fixing the water damage in the house. After the processing of a home insurance claim I am out of pocket $5K for the roof replacement and $10K for the water damage remediation. When I do my 2018 tax return, is the repairs considered a capital improvement or an expense?  

I ended up selling the house in January 2019.