<prompt> Human: My partner recently left his former employer. There was a 401k that hed been contributing to that has maybe a few grand saved up. He wanted to cash this out instead of rolling over, however the employer told him that you can only cash out in February. He asked for more paperwork on it so he could just submit the papers now, but they said he has to wait. Also said there is nothing in writing about that policy thats just how it works--it doesnt matter if you are still employed and decide to cash out, if you retire or if youre fired. Everybody waits until February.Ive never heard of this. Is this complete bs? Im not an expert but my hunch is that the company as well as my partner would also incur some early account closure fees which they are trying to avoid. I understand there might be fees, but just dont see how they say your 401k is tied up until some arbitrary date. If anyone knows anymore about this or has advice on how best to respond to the company so we can sort this out that would be appreciated.  <response>: Usually when an employer restricts distributions like this it means one of a few things: 1 They are on a balance forward platform. This means that the value of the assets in the plan are not generally calculated on a daily basis. Instead funds are invested and left, and all values are calculated on a less frequent basis often only once a year. Since the employer wouldnt be able to calculate the value of the account mid-year, participants have to wait until after the valuation date to take distributions. 2 They are very hands-on with the operation of the plan, and likely understaffed on the HR side to handle it, so they make everyone wait so they can handle the distribution requests in a large batch. 3 There are assets within the plan which are less liquid, such as the employers own stock, which can restrict how quickly the assets in the plan can be converted to cash for the distribution. Either way, its likely not straight BS, theres usually a reason for it. 