Using Boat as Home Address

[GaryMayo]

Your marina has an address and gets mail. Your slip has a number. I fail to see why your slip cannot get mail, or why you could not use the address of your marina for the acquisition of a drivers licence.

[hellosailor]

"Not sure how snowbirds who fly back and forth will now deal with that problem. "
The way they have always dealt with it. Follow the laws in your "home" state and ignore them in the other state, otherwise you may need to re-register and re-title your car twice each year depending on local laws and the timing of your stay. As a practical matter? Yeah, they ignore it.

As to the Patriot Act and license requirements, some states are issuing "secure" IDs standard, others as an exra cost option, and what they accept and how well they check it also varies by which one you are applying for.

In theory "no more boxes" in practice? There's no uniform standard, things will vary from state to state. Don't like your state? Move, that's why we still have states.

[Driftwoods]

Originally Posted by GaryMayo

Your marina has an address and gets mail. Your slip has a number. I fail to see why your slip cannot get mail, or why you could not use the address of your marina for the acquisition of a drivers licence.

I think it varies from state to state some but in Texas:

Section 522.022 of the Transportation Code reads in relevant part:

The department may not issue a commercial driver's license other than a nonresident license to a person unless the person:

(1) has a domicile in this state.

Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 522.022(1) (Vernon 1999).

For the purposes of chapter 522 of the Transportation Code, "domicile" is defined as:

the place where a person has the person's true, fixed and permanent home and principal residence and to which the person intends to return whenever absent.

I am not a lawyer but ... I believe everyone is Texas is required by law to have a domicile and I think the key thing here is "fixed and permanent". Since your boat is not fixed and permanent, I don't think you can use it as your domicile. Any legal eagles out there know for sure?

[hellosailor]

If you want to receive mail, you need a postal address. The USPS has their own regulations for that. Some municipalities have a street numbering system (i.e. the numbers go up every ten feet from the town center) and most have some way to synchronize with the post office. But it is also common for builders to apply to the USPS to have a special mailing address assigned to a property, contrary to what the standard assignment would be.

Just because you live under a rock, doesn't mean that rock has a municipal or postal address.

I expect the St. Brendan's has a special Papal Dispensation because it is a thriving local business which brings in significant business income, and that trumps everything else in Florida. A number of businesses in other states have offered similar services, and either the states or the USPS have shut them down, sometimes simply over the question of how that "Box" number is used on the postal address. (Box /vs/ Unit /vs/ whatever).

[bgallinger]

Originally Posted by Teknav

All my utility bills, bank statements and credit card statement go to a UPS mailbox. UPS store will not forward your mail to a foreign country, because it is assumed a Fraudulent Business.

All my bills and mail go to a UPS store and all my mail has been forwarded to a foreign country for 12 years now. Canada is a foreign country right?

[GaryMayo]

Originally Posted by Driftwoods

I think it varies from state to state some but in Texas:

I am not a lawyer but ... I believe everyone is Texas is required by law to have a domicile and I think the key thing here is "fixed and permanent". Since your boat is not fixed and permanent, I don't think you can use it as your domicile. Any legal eagles out there know for sure?

If your address is the blue boat at the end of the dock, that would be transient. If your address, as mine is, is a pier number, that is going nowhere. If I have a mobile home, and my lot number is 30, what stops me from moving across town? That would be an address change. Being on water is no different than being in a trailer park.

My favorite Tshirt reads: You mess with me, you mess with the whole trailer park!

See below

[GaryMayo]

[hellosailor]

"If your address, as mine is, is a pier number, that is going nowhere."
And you still don't have a postal address, until you have a gen-you-whine USPS approved lockbox, delivery box, door slot, or other USPS APPROVED way to receive your mail.
In some places, they get fussier than others. Local postal carriers are somewhere in the pecking order between MDs and God.

[Driftwoods]

I don't know for sure but, and I'm just playing devil's advocate here, I think that's splitting hairs to some extent between what is a place of residence and what is a domicile. Your residence may move but your domicile is not supposed to move (or something like that). A lot seems to come down to intent - if you intend to return to that pier (or trailer park), it probably would work just as you currently do it and you could list the pier as a domicile and move your residence (your boat) as much as you want. Man, now I think I'm splitting hairs. Why's it gotta be so hard?

[Wavewacker]

Actually, this thread shows a real problem and it's not limited to cruisers, there are thousands of RVers who travel as well and I'm sure many of them have similar issues.

So, I was thinking why not use the forums and internet to organize and bombard the congress and elected officials with not just the problem but also a solution?

May be the Homeland Security folks and states will make a provision for a traveling status, it's reasonable I'd say. The government can not require you to live under a roof over land regardless of what they want.

I'd bet that the powers to be are unaware that so many law abiding citizens don't have a physical address.

As to banks and opening an account, I never had to prove an address, I just told them the address. They are required to positively identify you, nothing more. You may be getting flak from larger banks, many bank employees get confused between laws and company policies.

Seems to that if you have a registered yacht with the CG with your general stomping grounds they can find you if they want to.

I know a couple roaming the country for the past few years in a million plus RV, not sure if they have a problem, as most everything was set before taking off after selling the house. I doubt that get razzed in that motorhome and probably have their attorney renew their drivers license as an officer of the court.

So, I wonder what kind of status could be bestowed upon you, maybe a federal ID card or something.

[SaucySailoress]

OK, so I have not lived in the UK for sixteen years, but still use my mother's address for things like driver's licence etc. BUT, the doctor won't see me there, because I haven't been resident in the UK for more than 2 years! I am British, but not resident in the UK. I am living with my husband on a visit visa. Although not doing anything illegal, I am not actually 'legal' anywhere.

My husband is in a worse situation. He is German, but has never lived there. He has no permanent address! The whole situation regarding identity is absolutely bloody ridiculous. And when we do sail off, and are transient, god alone knows how we will deal with the dilemma of renewing documents.

And yet, in today's electronic era, it doesn't seem to be possible to just go off the grid and just wander round in stealth mode... Pity.

[GaryMayo]

The last thing I want, right after my D#ck never falling off, is a federal ID card.

[Doodles]

Originally Posted by GaryMayo

If your address is the blue boat at the end of the dock, that would be transient. If your address, as mine is, is a pier number, that is going nowhere. If I have a mobile home, and my lot number is 30, what stops me from moving across town? That would be an address change. Being on water is no different than being in a trailer park.

My favorite Tshirt reads: You mess with me, you mess with the whole trailer park!

See below

If you use the marina address the postman is not going to go up and down the dock dropping mail in cockpits, but they will leave it at the marina office or wherever they deliver the marina's mail. Ours has a big mailbox at the driveway coming into the marina. Problem with this is most marina don't want a bunch of mail coming in for xxx different slip holders that they need to sort and hold until you come in and pick it up. Ours does it on a special case basis but not permanently.

Package deliveries are a different story, and they have no problem with those.

We use St. Brendan's for regular mail and the marina for packages.

[Kettlewell]

A couple of comments. First, I was wrong, these new ID requirements are due to the Real ID Act, which most states have received various waivers from but I believe all have to comply with starting January 2013. I also believe, if I am reading it right, that by 2017 if you don't have what qualifies as a Real ID you won't be able to use it for anything that requires Federal ID, like flying for example. Read more about it all here.

As I have said in other threads, I think the logical away around this will be to chose someone's address somewhere that you call "home." Apparently SBI in Florida is still able to make this work for many cruisers. Probably a trusted relative will work, because you will have to be able to prove that you live there by receiving things like bank statements, utility bills, leases, etc. there. All of your other mail could go to whatever place you chose to use for mail forwarding purposes. The marina idea might work for some, but many of us don't rent slips. All this information is theoretically supposed to be verified by the state, which is why they will be running your address to see if it is a residential or business address. I'm not sure if a business address will work in the future.

How this will actually be enforced in the real world will probably vary a lot, but some places are bound to be nasty and cruisers will have to try some other place. I'm reading on the RV forums of people who have had problems dealing with this.

[GaryMayo]

If you are claiming as an address, somewhere you really do not live, example, a sister's house, that would be actionable in the feds eyes. It would be cause for prosecution if they get riled up over something. I would rather list where I am, than pull a fast one and try to get by. If you have shore power, and have a one year lease, how is that any different than hook ups and a lease at a trailer park?