Recently sold our home in Colorado. We want to keep our domicile in Colorado. Our only issue is what do we use for a permanent address for insurance purposes? We have no family in our previous community, and don't want to impose on friends. What have you done? TIA
Keeping domicile the same after selling house
- Thread starter mdgear
- Start date
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Find a mail boxes are us or some other mail box business. Ask them if they can foreword mail. Keep searching until you find one that will work for you.
BTW CO is not one of the cheapest places to establish residence. Remember your still liable for taxes etc.
BTW CO is not one of the cheapest places to establish residence. Remember your still liable for taxes etc.
Gary RV_Wizard
Site Team
What address will you use on your driver license and vehicle title & tags? Generally a USPS box or PMB (Private Mail box) won't be accepted for those either, but check with the Colorado motor vehicle agency to see what will work. Chances are that address will also work for insurance purposes, what the insurers call the "principal garage".
Unless you are planning on purchasing property in the next couple of years again in CO, you may want to consider establishing your domicile/residence in a more favorable State. At least investigate FL and TX for such things as tax liability, health care insurance costs, RV registration fees, etc.
Also, before signing up with any type of mail forwarding service make sure it will be accepted as a "real" address for your driver's license, registrations, bank and banking loans, and everything else that could come up. Also, remember wherever that address is you will be voting there also.
Also, before signing up with any type of mail forwarding service make sure it will be accepted as a "real" address for your driver's license, registrations, bank and banking loans, and everything else that could come up. Also, remember wherever that address is you will be voting there also.
Back2PA
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FL-Joe said:
And SD
Thank you to those who replied to my earlier post. Our Colorado State Tax is minimal and at this point we intend to return to Colorado when our wandering days are over. We fit all the criteria for Colorado domicile except having a permanent address. It has been suggested that we use our old home address, but we have no intention of going back there. Has anyone used a lawyer's office, their cpa, etc. We have no family there, and trying not to impose on friends. The mail service says they can't be used as a permanent address. Thanks again
Gary RV_Wizard
Site Team
The mail service's opinion doesn't count. The "permanent address" thing is complex and you have to comply with whatever each issuing agency says and realize the rules for one thing may differ from another, even among state agencies. Also be aware that the address you use for billing or official notifications usually does NOT have to be the same as the "legal" address for establishing residency, voting eligibility, tax liability, etc. So for example, a lawyers office that is designated as your legal representative may be acceptable for a driving license but not for voter registration, because you do not actually reside there.
People often end up just picking an address and assuming (correctly in 99.99% of cases) that there will never be an attempt to verify whether it is home or business or whether you ever spend even a moment there. However, with the focus on voter fraud and "Real Id" cards, this has become more chancey.
One thing you can do is obtain a US passport while you still have a valid CO address. The fixed address isn't strictly required, but it makes the process a bit easier. The passport becomes your basic "Real Id" and is considered the ultimate in identification (verified by the US gov't!). It takes you out of the realm of possibly being a fraud trying to get a fake Id and into the bone-fide citizen category.
Another technique is to rent a storage unit, since you probably will have some goods or heirlooms you want to keep anyway, plus maybe some health or financial records, etc. If you pick one that has a valid street address, you may be able to treat the address as our legal "home", even though you never actually live there. Then use a secondary address, e.g. a PMB or whatever, as your point of contact for mailed notices.
This article may help understand the nuances of domicile, residency, and "legal addresses" for various purposes.
https://www.escapees.com/establishing-domicile-for-rvers/
People often end up just picking an address and assuming (correctly in 99.99% of cases) that there will never be an attempt to verify whether it is home or business or whether you ever spend even a moment there. However, with the focus on voter fraud and "Real Id" cards, this has become more chancey.
One thing you can do is obtain a US passport while you still have a valid CO address. The fixed address isn't strictly required, but it makes the process a bit easier. The passport becomes your basic "Real Id" and is considered the ultimate in identification (verified by the US gov't!). It takes you out of the realm of possibly being a fraud trying to get a fake Id and into the bone-fide citizen category.
Another technique is to rent a storage unit, since you probably will have some goods or heirlooms you want to keep anyway, plus maybe some health or financial records, etc. If you pick one that has a valid street address, you may be able to treat the address as our legal "home", even though you never actually live there. Then use a secondary address, e.g. a PMB or whatever, as your point of contact for mailed notices.
This article may help understand the nuances of domicile, residency, and "legal addresses" for various purposes.
https://www.escapees.com/establishing-domicile-for-rvers/
Back2PA
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Gary RV_Wizard said:
The Feds will be the first issue. I found that no matter how I formatted the address ("suite, PMB etc") I could not get the SSA or the FAA to accept my SD mail forwarding address. I finally gave up and now use one of my AZ rental properties. Yet while I was using an AZ forwarding service (UPS Store) I had no trouble getting an AZ driver license with that address. I had the same issue with, of all things, my FL fishing license, yet FL had no problem with my SD address for boat registration. The Feds have pretty well identified addresses as either residence or business, and won't in some cases, let you say you live at a business.
I am wondering if this PMB/mail forwarding situation will be disallowed altogether at some point. If it is, there are many people that will have a real conundrum on their hands.
mdgear said:
It may come down to you are going to have to ask some friends for permission to use their address.
When we sold our Florida home we were going to stay Florida residents. I checked into some mail service options which were actually going to work okay, except for the voting. We knew we would return to the same general area of SW Florida every winter to do all of our Doctor visits and stuff so we wanted to be registered to vote locally.
A good family friend (single lady) offered to let us use her address. It has worked out really good for the past couple of years. We rarely get any mail we need anyway and if something comes during the 7 or 8 months we are out of the area she holds it for awhile and then forwards it to us. Easy-peazy.
