HOME BUYERS' PLAN
If your Group Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) allows withdrawals, you may be able to participate in the Home Buyers' Plan (HBP), a program established by the federal government allowing homebuyers to withdraw up to $25,000 from their RRSP to buy or build a qualifying home for themselves or for a related person with a disability (related to by blood, marriage, common-law partnership, or adoption, but does not have to reside in the same house as the home buyer). You may participate in the HBP more than once, as long as you have repaid your previous withdrawal in full and within the prescribed time period.
How can you qualify for the HBP?
- You must be a resident of Canada
- You must be the plan owner of the RRSP
- You and your spouse/common-law partner have not owned your principal place of residence at any time during the year you make your RRSP withdrawal and the four preceding years or you are withdrawing funds to buy or build a home for a related person with a disability
- You must have a written offer of purchase in place to buy or build a qualifying home (single-family home, semi-detached home, townhouse, mobile home, condominium unit, apartment in a duplex, triplex, fourplex, or apartment building) with a builder, contractor, realtor, or private seller
- You must intend to occupy the qualifying home as your principal place of residence no later than one year after buying or building it
- You have to buy or build the qualifying home before October 1 of the year after the year of the withdrawal
- Your repayable HBP balance on January 1 of the year of the withdrawal has to be zero if you previously participated in the HBP
- Neither you nor your spouse/common-law partner can own the qualifying home more than 30 days before the withdrawal
You have 15 years to repay your RRSP and you can repay your withdrawal to any of your RRSPs, including your Group RRSP. If you don't repay the amount due in a year, it will be included as income for that particular year. You can use your RRSPs for the Home Buyers' Plan at the same time as the Lifelong Learning Plan.
Contact the Blevins Team for more information.
