I'd be happy to help, but my experience is limited. Read a little more and you might find some of it useful. In Chicago, my neighbors and I are working with Neighbor-Space to turn a nearby vacant lot into a community garden. We're still in the planning stages and would like to get something in the ground this year. There are two longtime existing community gardens (run with the help of Neighbor-Space) not far from our plot and our little group has been talking to their leaders, who've been very helpful. You might try talking to them. Frankie Machine Garden - 1800 W. Haddon Ave., Marjorie Isaacson, marjiei@yahoo.com, Greenhouse Garden - 1100 N. Wood St., J.W. Glass, jwglass@bscichicago.com, ph. 312-498-3889, If you want some info on community gardens in the City of Chicago, talk to Margaret Weiner at Neighbor-Space. It's a non-profit citywide agency and she can probably find plenty of other people for you to talk to. They run about 55 community gardens in the city of Chicago and buy or lease the land, provide liability insurance, and provide some basic grant money along with a lot of good connections. info@neighbor-space.org 312-431-9406 Sounds like an interesting project. Good luck. Not that relevant, but check out the 30 homemade earth boxes I put on my garage roof. Here is a link that might be useful: Chicago's Neighbor-Space Organization

You really need to talk to a CPA and/or real estate attorney in your jurisdiction. And also at issue is how the property has been handled for tax purposes to-date. Has it been depreciated as an investment property? Have maintenance expenses been used to offset income? How has this been handled on each party's taxes to date? Without knowing the above, and without being an expert in your area, I don't see how the scenario can be spun as a sale "not" taking place. The mental gymnastics required would land on "I'm gifting you this interest in our joint property for no consideration, and then you are gifting me DP + $20,000, but the two have nothing to do with one another."

It's complicated comparing what we have now because what we have is three systems that combined are way oversized. The house is in Georgia so proper A/C is key. It's about 2700 sq ft, 1.5 story (meaning there are two small guest rooms upstairs but most of the house is on first floor) and has had foam put in the attic (same floor as the guest rooms). I'd go with a different contractor but SO seems to resonate with this one since he is so highly recommended by people who put in whole new systems like ours. He has done zones for others and we did see the Manual J. We even went to one person's house and looked at his whole system including the zoning to check out the workmanship as best we could tell. But I guess I'm wondering if either Amana or EWC has put out some new equipment that could account for us being the guinea pigs. Knowing this is a big investment we are keeping a long time, I want to do all I can to get it right. This post was edited by cas20 on Sun, Feb 10, 13 at 15:40

Thanks..I like this one and the one you suggested. At the very least its something to do while I spend every nite wide awake enjoying all my joyous menopausal symptoms. It does help a bit to know I am NOT ALONE in this HELL :)