Identification Requirement

Note: The information provided herein has been collected from the IRS Website and is not guaranteed or endorsed by Bob and Linda Lario. For more information, please contact www.irs.gov or a 1031 exchange qualified intermediary.

You must identify the property to be received within 45 days after the date you transfer the property given up in the exchange. This period of time is called the identification period. Any property received during the identification period is considered to have been identified.

If you transfer more than one property (as part of the same transaction) and the properties are transferred on different dates, the identification period and the receipt period begin on the date of the earliest transfer.

Identifying Replacement Property

You must identify the replacement property in a signed written document and deliver it to the other person involved in the exchange. You must clearly describe the replacement property in the written document. For example, use the legal description or street address for real property and the make, model, and year for a car. In the same manner, you can cancel an identification of replacement property at any time before the end of the identification period.

Identifying Alternative and Multiple Properties

You can identify more than one replacement property. Regardless of the number of properties you give up, the maximum number of replacement properties you can identify is the larger of the following:

  • Three
  • Any number of properties whose total fair market value (FMV) at the end of the identification period is not more than double the total fair market value, on the date of transfer, of all properties you give up.

If, as of the end of the identification period, you have identified more properties than permitted under this rule, the only property that will be considered identified is:

  • Any replacement property you received before the end of the identification period, and
  • Any replacement property identified before the end of the identification period and received before the end of the receipt period, but only if the fair market value of the property is at least 95% of the total fair market value of all identified replacement properties. (Do not include any you canceled.) Fair market value is determined on the earlier of the date you received the property or the last day of the receipt period.

Disregard Incidental Property

Do not treat property incidental to a larger item of property as separate from the larger item when you identify replacement property. Property is incidental if it meets both the following tests.

  • It is typically transferred with the larger item.
  • The total fair market value of all the incidental property is not more than 15% of the total fair market value of the larger item of property.

Replacement Property To Be Produced

Gain or loss from a deferred exchange can qualify for non-recognition even if the replacement property is not in existence or is being produced at the time you identify it as replacement property. If you need to know the fair market value of the replacement property to identify it, estimate its fair market value as of the date you expect to receive it.

Receipt Requirement

The property must be received by the earlier of the following dates:

  • The 180th day after the date on which you transfer the property given up in the exchange.
  • The due date, including extensions, for your tax return for the tax year in which the transfer of the property given up occurs.

You must receive substantially the same property that met the identification requirement, discussed earlier.

Replacement Property Produced After Identification

In some cases, the replacement property may have been produced after you identified it (as described earlier in Replacement Property To Be Produced.) In that case, to determine whether the property you received was substantially the same property that met the identification requirement, do not take into account any variations due to usual production changes. Substantial changes in the property to be produced, however, will disqualify it.

If your replacement property is personal property that had to be produced, it must be completed by the date you receive it to qualify as substantially the same property you identified.

If your replacement property is real property that had to be produced and it is not completed by the date you receive it, it still may qualify as substantially the same property you identified. It will qualify only if, had it been completed on time, it would have been considered to be substantially the same property you identified. It is considered to be substantially the same only to the extent it is considered real property under local law. However, any additional production on the replacement property after you receive it does not qualify as like-kind property. (To this extent, the transaction is treated as a taxable exchange of property for services.)

Additional Resources

Publication 544, Sales and Other Dispositions of Assets

Form 8824, Like-Kind Exchanges (PDF)

Contact Bob and Linda Lario today for Colorado Ranch Land, Mountain Homes and Land, and Real Estate Acreage in Western Colorado!

  • Bob and Linda Lario
  • RE/MAX© Mountain West
  • P.O. Box 778
  • Paonia, CO 81428
  • Office: 970.527.7759
  • Toll Free: 800.571.7670

Copyright 2006 The Lario Team - All Rights Reserved

Real Estate Web Design by Firestar Design Company