@PatriciaVPub 936 says "dividing that total by the number of months the home secured by that mortgage was a qualified home during the year." For the NC loan that was held for only 5 months, doesn't that result in $385,000 x 5/5 = $385,000? Or is there some precedent for considering a property owned for only part of the year to be a qualified home for all months in the year?
The divide-by-12 approach would mean that a $2mil loan balance held for only 4 months would be fully deductible, whereas the law says we're capped at $750k for "any period." To me that seems like the divide-by-12 method may be not compliant with either the Pub or the underlying law. Is there something I'm not aware of, or any case law or IRS guidance to indicate that this is indeed a valid way to compute this? (I'd love that because it would benefit my taxes this year, but want to make sure it's actually valid before I apply something that's beneficial to me.)
