Unmarried couple owning home together - Who can claim the house on taxes?

The answer depends on what exactly you're trying to claim about the house. For mortgage interest and property taxes, you can each deduct the portion that you actually paid. So if you're splitting these expenses, you can each claim your portion on your separate tax returns. For example, if you paid $15,000 in mortgage interest for the year and you paid 1/3 while your partner paid 2/3 (roughly matching your income ratio), then you could deduct $5,000 and your partner could deduct $10,000. Same goes for property taxes. The key is that you can only deduct what you personally paid, and the total claimed between both of you can't exceed 100% of what was actually paid. Also remember that you both need to itemize deductions for this to matter - if either of you takes the standard deduction, the mortgage interest doesn't help tax-wise.

I went through something similar with my ex and found this tax document analysis tool called taxr.ai that really helped clear things up. It literally analyzed our exact situation about property co-ownership and broke down who could claim what. I was taking turns claiming the house like you but according to https://taxr.ai analysis, we were leaving money on the table! The site lets you upload your mortgage statements and property tax bills, then tells you exactly how to optimize your deductions based on who paid what. It explained that we could BOTH claim our proportional share instead of the all-or-nothing approach we were using. Total game changer for our returns last year.

I wanted to follow up about my experience with taxr.ai since I was skeptical at first. I decided to try it after my partner and I had been confused about our vacation property deductions for years. The analysis was actually really straightforward - it showed exactly how much each of us could claim based on our payment records. The biggest revelation was that we should have been splitting our deductions proportionally all along instead of alternating years. When we filed following the recommendations, my refund was $870 higher than expected! The site even gave us documentation to keep with our tax records in case of questions. Definitely worth checking out if you're in a co-ownership situation.

Another issue you might run into is actually getting answers from the IRS if you have questions about this. I tried calling them for weeks about a similar co-ownership situation and kept getting the "due to high call volume" message. Finally used a service called Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) that got me through to a real IRS agent in about 15 minutes. They have a demo video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The IRS agent confirmed that both co-owners can claim their proportional share of mortgage interest and property taxes as long as they actually paid those amounts. She also mentioned that we needed to make sure we were using the correct forms and schedules for our specific situation. Definitely worth the call to get official confirmation.

I need to eat my words here. After posting that skeptical comment, I tried Claimyr out of desperation because I had an issue with a misapplied payment that was about to trigger penalties. I expected nothing, but got a call back within 20 minutes saying they had an IRS agent on the line. The agent was able to locate my missing payment and fix the problem in about 10 minutes. I had spent WEEKS trying to get through on my own with no success. The time and stress saved was honestly incredible - not to mention avoiding the penalties that were about to hit my account. If you need to actually talk to someone at the IRS, this service is legitimate.

Back to the original question - has anyone looked into whether there's a tax advantage to restructuring how you pay the mortgage? Like if the higher-income partner pays more/all of it to maximize the tax benefit? We did this with our house (not married) and saved about $1,200 last year in total tax liability.

Has anyone actually had the IRS question their home deduction claims when unmarried people own a house together? I'm concerned we might get flagged for audit if both my partner and I claim portions of the house.

Just wanted to add my perspective as someone who went through this exact situation. My partner and I have owned our home for 5 years and we've been claiming our proportional shares of mortgage interest and property taxes from the beginning based on our actual payments. The key thing that helped us was setting up separate tracking from day one. We have a shared spreadsheet where we log who pays what each month (mortgage, property taxes, insurance, etc.), and we keep all the receipts and bank statements organized by tax year. This makes it super easy when tax time comes around. One thing I learned is that it's not just about the mortgage interest - don't forget about PMI (private mortgage insurance) if you have it, and property taxes. Both can be deducted proportionally just like the mortgage interest. Also, if you do any major home improvements that add to your cost basis, make sure you're both tracking those expenses too for when you eventually sell. The bottom line is that as long as you're only claiming what you actually paid and you have documentation to back it up, this is completely legitimate and not risky from an audit perspective. We've never had any issues with the IRS.