Legal and Professional Expenses of Rental Property

[lilly54]

I had to take a former tenant to court last year. As a result, I have legal fees for filing, service, mileage/parking to court, copying fees, etc. It was small claims court so no lawyers.

Questions:

1. Do I just combine those into one lump and put them under Legal and Professional Fees in the Rental Property section?

2. Can I take mileage to and from court (which I had multiple times to file papers, etc)? If so, at what rate? Do I include that under the lump of Legal and Professional Fees or under mileage for Rental Property (where I see it says it will use .65/mile as the rate).

Thanks.

[AnnetteB6 · Accepted solution]

All of your expenses related to the legal fees (except the mileage) can be lumped together and claimed as a miscellaneous expense or a professional fee expense.  

Your mileage will need to be entered in the Vehicle Expenses section where you will include additional information about the use of your vehicle such as the total miles driven for the year and the miles driven for business (rental) purposes.  Be sure also that you have a log of the miles that were driven in order to document the expense.  It would not be correct to simply take your miles and multiply it by the IRS rate and claim an expense for that amount.