Where do you deduct ordinary & necessary expenses to maintain your Vacant Rental Property that was Held for Sale for 2.5 months (but wasn't being marketed for rent)?

[NPChristy]

A rental property is rented thru June 30th, and then vacant 2.5 months and sold on Sept 15th for a gain.  During July -Sept, the property was not marketed for rent, but it was put up for sale.  I'm assuming the ordinary & necessary expenses for managing, . .maintaining the property until it is sold are deductible (i.e. HOA fees, interest/taxes, utilities, etc), but are these deductible as a rental expense on Sched E, or as a selling expense on 4797?  Public 527 states that 

Vacant while listed for sale.  If you sell property you held for rental purposes, you can deduct the ordinary and necessary expenses for managing, conserving, or maintaining the property until it is sold. If the property isn’t held out and available for rent while listed for sale, the expenses aren’t deductible rental expenses.   (The last line has always confused me -it implies it only has to be available for rent).  

But later, it defines being not permanently withdrawn from service until it is sold. . 

"You retire property from service when you permanently withdraw it from use in a trade or business or from use in the production of income because of any of the following events.

• You sell or exchange the property
• You convert the property to personal use
  
• You abandon the property
  
• The property is destroyed."
  

So that implies I can still deduct the ordinary expenses until it's sold, but where?

Thanks for your help!

[George4Tacks · Accepted solution]

I would leave them on Schedule E.

Are we having fun yet?

[rbynaker]

Me too.  CAGMC.  Although I do kind of "bucket" things as regular expenses and selling expenses.  Selling expenses go into the capital gain math.  Regular expenses just fall out of Sch E.  For 2.5 months of vacancy, I wouldn't put too much effort into this one.  If it's vacant for 2.5 years, then we're asking some hard questions.

[NPChristy]

Thanks so much for your help!  I wasn't too worried about the 2.5 months expenses, but wanted to also know for future as to how to split those up.  I appreciate your quick responses!

[NPChristy]

George.  Yes always!