Rent question

[ledrums]

Do you have to prove you are paying rent? We are giving a family member a little cash here and there in compensation for letting us live with him, however he doesn't report it as income and we don't want to get him in trouble by putting it on schedule J. Any advice?

[Breathing]

Best policy is to be honest.

[ccsjoe]

ledrums,

The short answer is yes. Both the means test and schedule J take rent into account. You need to come clean in this process.

[tobee43]

this may be a slight "legal" way around this (or so we were told). because your relative may have to declare your "rent" as income if anyone finds out.

we had a relative that had a empty apt. he said if you pay the expenses you may stay there....so i asked the attorney if this was "legal" for two reasons. first, this relative didn't want a tax ramification on the rental....and secondly, we were homeless and needed a place to stay and by this time had no credit or enough monies to get a decent place.


so monthly via paypal i would pay "living" expenses to my relative. we didn't have to submit "Proof" as our bank statements reflexed the same amount of payment every single month for over 1 year....the same exact payment that i had declared as our rent.

i would not file until you have established a pattern of the same payment monthly.

[tcreegan]

under the table rent

Hi all,

How would anyone find out? You don't list the persons name, or God forbid soc sec # anywhere on the petition do you?

If you paid in cash there is no paper trail.

Just a thought.....

Tom in Colo

[tobee43]

good point tom, and i absolutely agree. we did it for other reasons.