How to Track Property Management Hours for the IRS

Why hour tracking matters

Tax Court cases have established a clear pattern: taxpayers who cannot produce detailed, contemporaneous logs lose their REPS claims. In Moss v. Commissioner (T.C. Memo 2017-90), the court disallowed a taxpayer's real estate professional status because his activity log was created after the fact and lacked sufficient detail. This happens repeatedly.

The IRS doesn't prescribe an exact format, but they expect records that are: (1) made at or near the time of the activity, (2) specific about what was done, and (3) detailed enough to support the claimed hours. Vague entries like “property management—4 hours” invite scrutiny. Entries like “Coordinated furnace repair with HVAC vendor for 123 Main St, exchanged 3 emails and scheduled appointment—45 minutes” hold up.

What the IRS expects in your records

While there is no single IRS form for activity tracking, court precedent and IRS guidance (Treasury Regulation 1.469-5T) point to several requirements for defensible logs:

• Date of each activity
• Description of the specific work performed
• Duration in hours and minutes
• Property the work related to
• Category of activity (repairs, tenant screening, bookkeeping, etc.)
• Supporting evidence (emails, receipts, photos, contracts)

The key word is contemporaneous. Records created at the time of the activity carry far more weight than logs reconstructed during tax season. Courts have treated after-the-fact reconstructions as “self-serving” and given them minimal weight.

Methods for tracking your hours

There are three broad approaches, each with tradeoffs:

What qualifies as property management time

The IRS recognizes a wide range of activities as qualifying property management work. Here are the categories most relevant to rental property owners:

• Tenant screening and relations: Reviewing applications, running background checks, showing units, handling tenant complaints, processing move-ins and move-outs
• Maintenance coordination: Fielding repair requests, getting quotes, scheduling contractors, inspecting completed work
• Bookkeeping: Recording income and expenses, reconciling accounts, processing security deposit returns, tracking rent payments
• Travel: Driving between properties, to vendor meetings, to hardware stores for supplies, to the post office for certified letters
• Vendor management: Coordinating with cleaners, landscapers, handymen, plumbers, electricians, and other contractors
• Insurance and legal: Filing claims, reviewing policies, consulting attorneys, handling compliance requirements
• Marketing and advertising: Listing vacant units, taking photos, writing descriptions, managing listing platforms
• Tax preparation: Time spent specifically on rental property tax matters with your CPA or tax preparer

For the full breakdown with examples and typical time ranges, see our IRS Activity Categories reference.

Best practices for defensible records

• Log daily. Even five minutes at the end of the day is better than reconstructing at year-end. Better yet, use a system that logs automatically.
• Be specific. “Called plumber about kitchen leak at Unit 3B, scheduled repair for Thursday—15 min” beats “maintenance call—15 min.”
• Keep evidence. Save the email, the text message, the receipt, the photo. Your log should be verifiable, not just a list of claims.
• Separate by property. Unless you've filed an aggregation election, the IRS evaluates material participation per property. Track which property each activity relates to.
• Use consistent categories. Align your categories with what the IRS recognizes. Random labels make it harder for an auditor to evaluate your claim.
• Don't inflate hours. Round to the nearest 15 minutes, not the nearest hour. Auditors look for patterns of suspiciously round numbers.

How RE:Writeoff automates the hard part

The fundamental problem with manual tracking is that it depends on you remembering to do it. RE:Writeoff takes a different approach: it connects to your Gmail (read-only) and automatically identifies property management activities from your existing email flow.

Every qualifying email is classified into the correct IRS activity category, assigned a time estimate, linked to the relevant property, and stored with the original email as evidence. You get a contemporaneous, evidence-backed activity log without changing how you work.

The result is documentation that satisfies the standard courts have set: timestamped, specific, categorized, and linked to verifiable source material. No spreadsheets, no timers, no discipline required.

See how it works on our features page, or learn about the requirements for Real Estate Professional Status.