I am not changing my story, I'm clarifying. My first post says, "We rent out an apartment which is attached to our main home and depreciate 23% of the home. We have always taken 23% of our property tax and mortgage interest as a rental expense and take the other 77% on our Schedule A itemized deductions..."
It is attached and part of our main home structure as I try to clarify in my follow-up post. "...we rent out just a portion of our home (23%) and live in the other portion." The portion I'm referring to is a self contained "apartment" which does have its own kitchen, external entrance, but it also has an entrance from our main home. Part of it used to be a downstairs bedroom and bath. We added on additional space onto the side of our house to create a 650 square foot apartment for my father to live in. After he passed away we started renting it and I worked with a CPA to establish the basis and percentage of the total home which constitutes the portion we rent out. (23%). Hope this is clear now.
