This answer applies to personal property. The rules for business or rental property will be somewhat different.
You can't include as expenses, anything that changes the home. Minor repairs, painting, and other maintenance items are not allowable to reduce your selling price or increase your cost basis. These are things you should have been doing all along as a responsible property owner and you don't get tax breaks for them even when you sell.
Any permanent changes that count as improvements or betterments can be added to the cost basis. This could include a new roof or new flooring, but does not include minor maintenance and repair items like fixing a leaky faucet or painting.
You can't include the cost of appliances that were sold with the home. In most cases, your seller's contract will say that you sold the home for the full price and the appliance and any contents for $1. That's technically a capital loss (you buy for $1000 and sell for $1) but losses on personal property are not deductible.
You can include advertising as a selling expense, and advertising can include "staging" and other costs of preparing the house to show. But advertising does not include painting or other fix-up costs.
If audited, you have the burden of proving how you arrived at your figures for cost basis and adjustments to the selling price and capital gains. If audited, you won't be able to use the excuse "the company didn't give me the figures"--it's your burden to get them, or to not claim anything you can't prove. However, most people aren't audited.
