All Forum Posts by: Brian McCarter

I had already determined that it is not two of the major ones that do this area or a third one that I googled. I am stumped and so is my master carpenter. Neither of us can ID it.

Has anyone ever had to get these little metal bits custom made to replace them?

So I am trying to figure out what company made my windows so I can replace the pieces that hold it in the track. There is no name on the windows frame or glass, just a sticker with some numbers. Anyone recognize this?

Thank you for all the responses thus far. Maybe I should be a bit more specific. I actually know a great deal about energy efficiency and utilities, because at one time in my life I used to finance utilities, energy conservation work and power plants. For the property in question I have done the math and it is profitable for me to include utilities and have been taking advantage of every energy efficiency credit and program available. Including electric in rent is not something I would generally recommend to anyone but in this rare case I am able to drive the cost of utilities down through efficiency and for it to be less than the bump in rent for the area.

The one thing I know little about is high efficiency window units. Does anyone have any resource that ranks the most efficient units. The remote access idea was mostly wishful thinking since I have not run across one before.

Does anyone have any good resources on the energy use of various window air conditioners? Even more points if you have ones that can be monitored remotely via the internet. Need to put one in a place where I care how much energy the tenants are drawing.

So I did all the work to calculate the square footage of each room. By allocating the common areas by the number of people method(4/6), and excluding hallways and stairs as allowed, setting tenant rooms as 100% and landlord bedrooms at 0%: I get a business use figure of 68.5%.

Would it be reasonable to write off all expenses at 68.5% or should I break them apart? (building wide systems 68.5%, common area costs 66%, heat and electric 68.5%, Water 66%, tenant room repairs/ legal/credit check costs 100%, landlord room repairs 0%)

It may be that I have not articulated my question clearly or am looking for a far more nuanced answer, but there are still a few issues that I see. It would seem that the dividing of expenses by a live in landlord does not have much coverage in tax literature due to its rarity compared to investors with multi family homes.

Repairs and improvements to our personal use only rooms are our own expense. Check.

Expenses or improvements to shell of building or building wide systems are at the same % as depreciation. Check.

What about areas that are use by both tenants and landlord (kitchen, first floor bathroom, dinning room, living room)?

Why must ALL expenses be apportioned evenly ? IRS website http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch09.html in the how to divide expenses section says that " It may be reasonable to divide the cost of some items (for example, water) based on the number of people using them." This would seem to indicate that it is possible to apportion them in different ratios.

What other "reasonable methods" have been found to hold up in tax court? The IRS only refers to the two most common ones "The two most common methods for dividing an expense are based on (1) the number of rooms in your home, and (2) the square footage of your home. "

My enrolled agent pulled out a book when I last visited that said when renting rooms in your home, repairs and improvements to the common areas of the home, are not depreciated or expenses. This would lead me to believe that just using a % of all expenses may not be considered reasonable. Did this tax book even correctly interpret the tax code?

My main issue is trying to determine how much of the property is used by the tenant for IRS purposes.

I actually reached out to Joe Craft a few weeks ago to find out what his services would cost, but had not heard back. My business partner and I have been doing everything in our power to keep everything digital so location would not bother me.

After study the tax code, it seems the issue I am having is what the IRS considers the various "reasonable method's" of dividing the expenses.

Logically I would say that if four of the six bedrooms are rented, everything is split 2/3 towards rental expense. This would give credit for the use of the common area (living room, dinning room, kitchen and one of the three bathrooms). However is this justifiable?

Using the number of rooms method it would be closer to 5/12 (four bedrooms and a bathroom).

I have not calculated SF method but it's likely to be between 30% and 40%

I wanted to see if there were any tax experts who have ever rented rooms out in their home. The answer my enrolled agent who is not a real estate expert gave me did not seem to make logical sense to me and I wanted to get some advice here.

My business partner and I rent out 4 bedrooms in our six bedroom home. One of the three bathrooms is for exclusive use of tenants. The rooms we live in are smaller and on the third floor. Second floor is rented to tenants and first floor has kitchen, a bathroom, giant living room and dinning room.

How do we go about picking the % of the building to depreciate?

My tax person said that the work we did to the common area's of the building is considered personal expense and is not tax deductible (or dep). Would this be true? How about repairs to the roof and overhangs?

We are renting this place with utilities included. Now I have seen some logic that the water and sewer bill can be expended 2/3. Can heat only be expended at the same % of building that is depreciated? How about electric? Would this be closer to 2/3 since there are more renters in the building using more power?

I would love to hear from someone who has done this before.

We are located in Mass if that is of interest to anyone.