From:  Lenore
Date:  Sat, 15 Oct 2005

I have a question I am hoping you can answer.

Prior to marriage, I owned a condo that I occupied. My husband and I moved into a single family home. The condo's been rented now for about 15 years. If I sell the condo and 1031 exchange it, can I ever occupy the property I exchange to?

We would like to retire in 2-3 years, so we would like to rent the condo until retirement. Then we would like to sell our home and move into the exchanged property.

Can we do this?

Sincerely,
Lenore

Answer

Date:  Mon, 07 Nov 2005

Hello Lenore,

I think the transaction should be adequately "seasoned" after two or three years of renting it out, so you can probably do this.

There are no firm rules about this situation. If the property you are receiving isn't deemed to be "investment property" but "personal use property", the exchange doesn't qualify. The IRS could raise this argument in an audit.

Good luck!
Mike Gray

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