Tax write offs for house hacking Mother in Law Apartment

[Collette Petersen]

We are house hacking our mother-in-law apartment and I was curious about some potential tax write offs we could benefit from. My question is, do we need our Landlording License to benefit from these tax write offs? Things I'm thinking of are our property tax, lawn care, utility bills, etc. Or can we go about it without getting our license? 

We rent it to a family friend so its pretty casual, but I'd like to still be able to capitalize on these benefits if possible.

Thanks,

Collette