I know the safe harbor reasons for taking hardship distributions from a plan. Can I get some opinions on stretching the meaning of "the purchase of a principal residence" to "buying land for the principal residence" instead?

Search benefitslink.com for "real estate"

The third item will be an old Q&A "Would purchase of unimproved real estate, on which I'll build my principal residence, come within the safe harbor for a hardship distribution?"

Here is the URL to the Q & A to which Harwood refers
http://benefitslink.com/modperl/qa.cgi?db=...ibutions&id=208

Thanks for sending me to the right place. It doesn't look like we should recommend permitting a hardship in this case.