PaulaM
Employee Tax Expert

Get your taxes done using TurboTax

Sounds like your mother and yourself are joint property owners and joint rental (of room) property owners. 

1. You can only claim rental mortgage interest and property against rental income for the % that the room represents to the entire home. For ex: If the home is 1500 sq. ft and the rented room is 144 sq ft., then approx. 10% of those two costs could be considered a rental expense. The remaining 90% is personal and you can deduct that on Schedule A if you itemize your deductions. 

2. You can decide how you want to divide rental income anyway you wish with your partner. The IRS will be concerned only that the total 100% of the income is being reported between the two of you.

 

3. As noted in number 1 before, the expense of depreciation can only be deducted in the ratio % of the room/home sq. footage. The easiest way to accomplish this is to do the math before entering in TurboTax and list the room as if its own property. So continuing with example footage, figure out what 10% of the home and land cost is and enter those amounts along with the placed in service dates in the Asset/Depreciation section of your Rental Summary page. 

**Say "Thanks" by clicking the thumb icon in a post
**Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer"

View solution in original post