FL Document Services

[shellerina]

We are newbies to this forum.
We currently live in NY state, and plan to vacate our apartment this spring or summer and do The Loop or just head south depending upon Covid restrictions, Vaccine availability etc. We have signed up at SBI and have an address at 411 Walnut St. If we do The Loop we won't actually get to FL until Nov 2021. So, trying to strategize on WHEN to change domicile/residency from NY to FL.
There are income tax advantages to do it sooner, we know.

But we don't want to travel to FL just to do the paperwork. Is there a documentation firm or perhaps simply get a lawyer who can do all the DMV, drivers license stuff without us actually making the trip to FL??? Any advice from the forum?!?!

Ray & Shelly of Shellerina[.com]

[BillKny]

Originally Posted by shellerina

We are newbies to this forum.
We currently live in NY state, and plan to vacate our apartment this spring or summer and do The Loop or just head south depending upon Covid restrictions, Vaccine availability etc. We have signed up at SBI and have an address at 411 Walnut St. If we do The Loop we won't actually get to FL until Nov 2021. So, trying to strategize on WHEN to change domicile/residency from NY to FL.
There are income tax advantages to do it sooner, we know.

But we don't want to travel to FL just to do the paperwork. Is there a documentation firm or perhaps simply get a lawyer who can do all the DMV, drivers license stuff without us actually making the trip to FL??? Any advice from the forum?!?!

Ray & Shelly of Shellerina[.com]

Not at all sure how you can do the DMV stuff (like photos for licenses?) without actually going there.

Have you asked SBI? They have thousands of people they have helped do this, and are very familiar with the process. If they say "You need to come here," I would probably take that to the bank.

Be sure you 100% dot all the "i's" on this. New York is infamous for trying very hard to keep its tax claws into former residents who have moved to Florida. If your new official "residence" is a mail service, it will only double down their determination to prove you (and your money!) still belong to them.

[RickG]

We spent a 4-day holiday to get all of our paperwork done. Since we had no property or belongings in our former state it was straight forward to make the change. For boat registration make certain that you have a bill of sale and proof of tax paid. If you purchased your boat at six months before registration then you owe no tax to Florida.

The Boat Galley has a good write up on the process - https://theboatgalley.com/establishi...brendans-isle/

Cheers, RickG

[Sand crab]

So you want to claim Florida residency without even being in Florida first? What's wrong with that picture?

[cofc]

We just made the trip to Green Cove Springs last week to get everything done. I don’t think there is a way to do things remotely, however I can say that it was very easy and super fast. Declaration of domicile took about 5 minutes at the courthouse. Next door at the DMV we got our licenses in about 30 minutes. Voter registration will be done by mail.

We used the boat galley write up as a guide, however the process wasn’t as difficult as it seemed it would be. We needed DL and passports at the courthouse. At the DMV we needed DL, passport, and boat registration (we bought our boat in Florida so the tax and registration had already been taken care of).

We did forget to go to the library to get a library card. I called them once we got home to see if that could be done remotely, however they said it had to be done in person. So I guess we’ll do that next time we’re up that way.