Before filing your annual tax return, you should always check what deductions and tax credits you may qualify for. There’s a good chance you incurred a few legal fees while acquiring your investment property or due to other business-related matters. If you sustain legal fees for your investment property, they may be tax-deductible.
Attorney fees aren’t cheap, but luckily, you might be able to offset that cost by taking a tax deduction. Legal fees are tax-deductible for investment property if they were incurred for business matters. To be eligible for this write-off, legal fees must be directly related to business operations or part of your acquisition costs.
Legal fees are sometimes necessary expenses when managing your investment property, and that cost can sometimes be tax-deductible as a business operating expense. Here are some legal fees and expenses that may be tax-deductible for your investment property.
Business-matters
Legal fees are seen as a necessary business expense and can be tax-deductible. You can deduct legal fees for:
Rental property activity
You can deduct legal fees related to rental activity if it qualifies as a business. For example, If you needed to evict a tenant and hired an attorney, those fees are tax-deductible. However, landlords cannot deduct legal fees from defending the title of the property, recovering the property, or developing or improving the property. These are instead added to the property’s basis.
Start-up expenses
If you have legal fees from starting a business as an LLC or a corporation, the cost is deductible up to $5,000. Anything over that amount can be deducted within the first 60 months of starting your business.
Property acquisition
Legal fees from acquiring property are not instantly tax-deductible. The amount is added to the cost basis of the investment property and deducted through depreciation.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated personal and investment-related legal fee tax deductions. According to the IRS, “investment fees, custodial fees, trust administration fees, and other expenses you paid for managing your investments that produce taxable income are miscellaneous itemized deductions and are no longer deductible.” These deductions have been eliminated for 2018 through 2025.
Legal fees for your investment property must be business-related to be tax deductible. If you have questions about what legal fees are tax-deductible, consult a tax professional or ask your attorney to provide a billing statement showing what part of their fees are tax-deductible.
This material is for general information and educational purposes only. Information is based on data gathered from what we believe are reliable sources. It is not guaranteed as to accuracy, does not purport to be complete and is not intended to be used as a primary basis for investment decisions.