Q: In a recent article, a reader asked you what can be done when a home seller had to sell after less than 24 months’ occupancy during the last 60 months. You said if you lived in the house 18 months, for example, instead of the required 24 months, you could take 75 percent of the exemption. No real estate agent I know is aware of this. Neither could I find any tax preparer who knew about this exception. And I cannot find this information in any IRS publication. Please tell me where I can find a legal, authoritative writing that will agree with your opinion.

Have inflated appraisals helped fuel the current increase in foreclosures by credit-strapped borrowers? Are they at the core of many mortgage fraud schemes?The four largest trade groups representing appraisers say yes — and they are asking federal financial regulators to crack down on lenders and loan officers who pressure appraisers to raise valuations to allow overpriced deals to go through.

Led by the 22,000-member Appraisal Institute, the groups told regulators April 11 that subprime lenders experiencing high rates of foreclosures often have been guilty of “systematic inattention” to the accuracy and the sources of the valuations backing the mortgages they funded.