How would you address the TurboTax question of Ownership? Since my wife and I file jointly, designated owners are either her, me or jointly though legally neither one of us owns the property at this time.
Claim you both own it. Ownership is a moot point really, since your cost basis in the property will be $0 because you did not purchase it.
What would be a good and accepted metric to divide common costs between the two buildings?
Easy-peesy. If the total square footage of floor space among all structures on the property is 5000 sq feet, and what you are renting out is 1000 sq feet, that's 20%. It's quite obvious that you haven't even tried this with the program yet. Otherwise, you wouldn't need to ask this really. When you work this through the program and indicate that you rent out a part of your primary residence, you will be asked the square footage questions and the program will figure this stuff *for you*.
Would square footage be good or overall occupancy days of each section?
You're doing a process I like to refer to as "complexified simplification". That's where you take something so simple and go out of your way to make it as complex as possible. Totally unnecessary. Work it through the program and you'll see. One thing I do stress though, is to read *EVERYTHING* on each screen before entering data or making selections. ThE sMaLl PrInT mAtTeRs, big time!
