Early Withdrawal of an IRA – First Time Homebuyer

Photo credit: malomar

When you have money in an IRA, you are allowed to begin taking withdrawals once you’ve reached age 59½. But sometimes you’d like to take your money out earlier… and you’ve probably already discovered that there is a 10% penalty for taking funds out of your IRA early, right? So – is there a way to avoid that penalty? Perhaps as a first time homebuyer.

There are several ways to withdraw IRA funds without penalty, as a matter of fact. There are several sections of the Internal Revenue Code that deal with these early distributions – including 72(t) which includes the first time homebuyer exception. We’ll explain the first time homebuyer exception in this post.

First Time Homebuyer

If you are buying, building, or re-building your first home (defined later), you are allowed to take a distribution of up to $10,000 (or $20,000 for a married couple) from your IRA to fund a portion of your costs, without paying the 10% penalty. There are a few restrictions, though – here is the official wording from the IRS:

1. It must be used to pay qualified acquisition costs (defined later) before the close of the 120th day after the day you received it.
2. It must be used to pay qualified acquisition costs for the main home of a first time homebuyer (defined later) who is any of the following.
   1. Yourself.
   2. Your spouse.
   3. Your or your spouse’s child.
   4. Your or your spouse’s grandchild.
   5. Your or your spouse’s parent or other ancestor.
3. When added to all your prior qualified first-time homebuyer distributions, if any, total qualifying distributions cannot be more than $10,000.

If both you and your spouse are first time homebuyers (defined later), each of you can receive distributions up to $10,000 for a first home without having to pay the 10% additional tax.

Qualified acquisition costs. Qualified acquisition costs include the following items.

• Costs of buying, building, or rebuilding a home.
• Any usual or reasonable settlement, financing, or other closing costs.

First time homebuyer. Generally, you are a first time homebuyer if you had no present interest in a main home during the 2-year period ending on the date of acquisition of the home which the distribution is being used to buy, build, or rebuild. NOTE: If you are married, your spouse must also meet this no-ownership requirement. This provision might cause you to re-think the timing of a purchase of a home if you are about to get married and your soon-to-be spouse has had ownership within the past 2 years.

Date of acquisition. The date of acquisition is the date that:

• You enter into a binding contract to buy the main home for which the distribution is being used, or
• The building or rebuilding of the main home for which the distribution is being used begins.

The keys here are to make sure that you qualify as a first time homebuyer (by the IRS’ definition above), that you use the funds in time (before 120 days has passed since the distribution), and that you haven’t taken this option previously (or previous distributions were less than $10,000). For many folks this can be very helpful when buying a home.

Another important point to note is that although you do not have to pay the 10% penalty on the distribution, you WILL be required to pay ordinary income tax on any money taken from your IRA. This can be a surprise to some folks who weren’t expecting it. However, if you have post-tax (non-deductible) contributions in your IRA, these will be non-taxable, but pro rata in this distribution.