As I understand your question --- what do I do with expenses on a rental property with zero rent?
A property that is already a rental property i.e. it either has been used as rental before ( paused for repairs/improvements in between renters ) it is easy in that you still report everything on schedule -E and because of zero gross rental income, all the expensable expenses and the depreciation will become losses or suspended losses.
A property that has not been yet characterized as rental property, there is no schedule-E to report and therefore all the improvements are added to the basis of the property. Most often incidental items like cleaning etc in preparation for rental would go as part of rental expenses --- should try to do this in the same calendar year as the property is put up for rent, even if it actually rented the following year.
Does this help you?
