SDIRA and travel costs

[Steve K.]

do any of you folks here pay your travel expenses to visit properties (that you already own or are considering buying) through your self-directed IRA?

or is this a prohibited (or risky) transaction?

aloha

steve

[Dmitriy Fomichenko]

Steve, you can only use IRA funds to pay for the expenses directly related to the investment of the IRA. Meeting prospective realtors/property managers, etc are not directly related to the investment (since you don't have one yet) so paying those expenses from the IRA would be a violation. Like I said if you wish to spend the money on travel expenses, etc. those will be your personal expenses, not expenses of an IRA.

Think of it as buying a stock of a company. You may travel to visit that company before you buy the stocks, but you can't pay for travel out of your IRA. The same concept here.