So there are many different scenarios on this forum already, and I haven't read all of them so sorry if this is a repeat.

My wife and I bought a house at the end of 2008 / beg of 2009. It is kind of confusing...my wife and I signed papers on 12/31/2008 but the sellers moved to another state and being a holiday and such didn't get the papers to sign them until a few days later, and the final disbursement date from the Title company and the day we officially could start moving in was 01/05/2009. As far as I understand we didn't pay any property tax for 2008, the only item on the final statement is taxes for 01/01/2009 to 01/05/2009.

In my mind, since we didn't have control of the property until the 5th of January that is when our purchase was complete and official. We filed for the $8,000 tax credit, and received a letter back asking for documents verifying it was a 2009 purchase. I just wanted to get an opinion on what year we legally purchased the house in.