1. Since my mother's Trust owns her house, & I paid the repairs out of my accts, how do I deduct them - or can I? My mother left her house to me, but it is still in her Trust until the other beneficiaries are paid. The Trustee has allowed me to act as his "agent", continuing to pay bills, and take care of much of the administrative affairs for my mother's estate since I did all of it for years before she passed away. I was not paid for any of this work.
To keep her house, it will have to be rented. (The house was listed for rent mid November, 2015.) I handled all the deferred maintenance and remodeling work and paid for all of it out of my own accounts. The expenses were more than $30K last year, and there is still a punch list to go this year.
2. How to deduct the expenses last year against the rental income this year? Since the Trust owned the property in 2015, and I will receive ownership this month, can last year's expenses incurred for the Trust be deducted again future income for my property this year?
3. Do 1099-misc forms need to be filed for the contractors who worked to get it ready for rental? There are about a dozen individual contractors for whom I paid more than $600 last year. The Trustee tells me that 1099 misc forms are not required because the Trust is not a business. My understanding is that if I don't send the forms in, I can't deduct these expenses against the future income - or maybe it is a moot point given the possible answers to questnings 1 & 2.