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Old 02-18-2020, 07:53 PM   #1
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Leaving dirt home for good

So, after almost two years of living aboard full time we have listed our house for sale. We are residents of New Jersey, and are trying to figure out how we can remain so without a dry land address. First issue is driver licenses, then voting, and some issues with insurances- notably an umbrella policy that is part of our soon to be gone homeowners policy. We spend winters aboard in Florida and may eventually establish residency there. In the mean time if anyone has experience with all or any of this some advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Woodscrew
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Old 02-18-2020, 07:57 PM   #2
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Not sure what NJ laws are, but a UPS or Postal Annex store will give you a physical address. We used a service in Texas that caters to the RV and liveaboard market, Escapees, which allowed us to maintain our various licenses, registrations, tax status and so on. They had various levels of mail forwarding as well. Beware of jury duty though when you are a thousand or two miles away.
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Old 02-18-2020, 08:02 PM   #3
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So, after almost two years of living aboard full time we have listed our house for sale. We are residents of New Jersey, and are trying to figure out how we can remain so without a dry land address. First issue is driver licenses, then voting, and some issues with insurances- notably an umbrella policy that is part of our soon to be gone homeowners policy. We spend winters aboard in Florida and may eventually establish residency there. In the mean time if anyone has experience with all or any of this some advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Woodscrew
Will you not be subject to the draconian NJ taxes?

Have a look at St Brendan's Isle, based out of Green Cove Springs, FL. For your residence, and voting.

https://www.sbimailservice.com/becom...rida-resident/
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Old 02-18-2020, 08:29 PM   #4
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St. Brendand’s Isle looks interesting. We are seeing our accountant next week and will have to eventually deal with the NJ ‘’exit’’ tax. Don’t think we can escape NJ without paying that. Florida residency is a real possibility. We’ll have to weigh it all out. Right now up to our necks getting out of the house and especially my shop of 37 years.
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Old 02-18-2020, 08:38 PM   #5
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I don't live on the boat but have no mail delivery at my house.

I have a private mail box from a mailing store similar to an UPS store. I pay for a small box for mail but the business receives UPS, Fed Ex and freight services in addition to US Mail. I've received large items like water tanks, tires, dock flotation tubs etc. there. They will also save my mail when gone for several months. They will even forward my mail if I wanted it.

My address there is a regular street address with my box number, 3110 Main St #118. I have my drivers license and everything else linked to that address. As for voting, I use my residence address but have mail come to the mail box store. I have not received mail at a residence for over 30 years.

A Post Office can receive US Mail only and your address will be PO Box XXX which a lot of businesses will not ship to.
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Old 02-18-2020, 08:43 PM   #6
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I don't live on the boat but have no mail delivery at my house.

I have a private mail box from a mailing store similar to an UPS store. I pay for a box for small mail but the business receives UPS, Fed Ex and freight services in addition to US Mail. I've received large items like water tanks, tires, dock flotation tubs etc. there. They will also save my mail when gone for several months. They will even forward my mail if I wanted it.

My address there is a regular street address with my box number, 3110 Main St #118. I have my drivers license and everything else linked to that address. As for voting, I use my residence address but have mail come to the mail box store. I have not received mail at a residence for over 30 years.

A Post Office can receive US Mail only and your address will be PO Box XXX which a lot of businesses will not ship to.
Which state?

And do you still register to vote and pay taxes in that state because you still have a dirt home - which the OP is giving up (so has some flexibility)?
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Old 02-18-2020, 09:04 PM   #7
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Which state?

And do you still register to vote and pay taxes in that state because you still have a dirt home - which the OP is giving up (so has some flexibility)?
Washington State. No income tax.

I pay Property tax and vote using my residence address.

We lived on our boat for a year and a half and used the mail box address for everything, including drivers license and voting.

When you use a real address, which a private mail box provides, on licenses and other things there is no way that they can determine that the address is a private mail box.

For a while in the early 2000's, the Post Office or some Federal Agency required the user of a private mail box to use "PMB" in front of the box number - 3110 Main Street PMB118. That requirement was dropped after a short time. You can use Suite, Unit, # in front of the box number or just the number.
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Old 02-19-2020, 06:20 AM   #8
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For those with varied interests one joy of a fwd service is you will get your magazines.

The PO stops sending them on after 3 months .

Nato Mail Forwarding - Florida address - Mail Forwarding for ...

www.natomail.com

Nato Mail Forwarding, Sarasota, Florida has been providng a Florida addess and mailing services to travelers and businesses all over the world for over 50 ...
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Old 02-19-2020, 07:06 AM   #9
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...Have a look at St Brendan's Isle, based out of Green Cove Springs, FL. For your residence, and voting.

https://www.sbimailservice.com/becom...rida-resident/
I’ll second St. Brendan’s Isle. SBI has being doing it for years and handles ~7K active clients. Florida is a no income tax state, about 7% sales tax rate, and they want you here. SBI will help you make the move
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Old 02-19-2020, 08:04 AM   #10
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I'm curious. What's the upside to maintaining NJ residency? I left California 15 years ago for Florida and did everything possible to sever ties completely. My understanding is NJ is a higher tax jurisdiction than CA. Thoughts?
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Old 02-19-2020, 08:23 AM   #11
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Will you not be subject to the draconian NJ taxes?

Have a look at St Brendan's Isle, based out of Green Cove Springs, FL. For your residence, and voting.

https://www.sbimailservice.com/becom...rida-resident/
You cannot register to vote with only a St Brendan’s Isle address. It is a commercial address and is well known to the Clay County voter registration people. You need either utility bills, rent receipts or an affidavit swearing you are resident in a Florida address by the actual resident. The information on the SBI website is out of date ever since Clay County changed the rules.
The same now applies to Florida drivers licenses ever since Real ID rules took effect. You need to prove a residential address, not just a mail service.
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Old 02-19-2020, 08:31 AM   #12
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Actually, I switched to St Brenda s Isle (SBI) last February and everything worked as their web site states. The marina/rv address on Bulkhead Rd worked for voting....and the main address is a mailing address. SBI has done well staying on top of it based on my readings and experienced.

The big deal is using a permanent address for a driver's license and some banks where people are having issues. But I found the same in NJ as it is federal regulations on what addresses work or not. Turns out a rental receipt from a marina will qualify you, afterwards I have heard changing the license address is less of a big deal.

Banks now are coming up with some strange rules. For 3 weeks I have gone round and round with Capital one over a credit card.I don't have a piece of paper that satisfied all their requirements.. My 50 year old Social Security card didn't meet their standard even after 2 supervisor level reviews. My tax returns didn't work because I dont use a paid preparer. My 1099s dont work because they no longer print my whole SSN on them. I dont have W2s because I dont have an employer and my 1099R from the USCG no longer used the whole SSN but my military number designed to PROTECT my SSN.

So even though Capital One really wanted me to have one of their cards...the banking and ID requirements the government wants is getting strange unless you are a homeowner with mail going there....and even then not always enough.
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Old 02-19-2020, 08:33 AM   #13
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I’ll second St. Brendan’s Isle. SBI has being doing it for years and handles ~7K active clients. Florida is a no income tax state, about 7% sales tax rate, and they want you here. SBI will help you make the move
This is why you can no longer use SBI as an address to register to vote in Clay County: they did not want 7000 non-residents absentee voting in local elections possibly turning the county from Republican to Democratic. They looked at the mail-in ballots from the district where SBI is located and were horrified that the returns “did not reflect the actual and historic make-up of the electorate”. This was a couple of years ago and we learned of this when we tried to register to vote using our SBI address about 18mo ago.
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Old 02-19-2020, 08:35 AM   #14
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Actually, I switched to SBI last February and everything worked as their web site states. The marina/rv address on Bulkhead Rd worked for voting....and the main address is a mailing address.

The big deal is using a permanent address for a driver's license and some banks where people are having issues. But I found the same in NJ as it is federal regulations on what addresses work or not. Turns out a rental receipt from a marina will qualify you, afterwards I have heard changing the license address is less of a big deal.
That’s because you used a physical address to register, the marina/RV park, not SBI. In our case we were not in a marina in Clay County. We since registered to vote and got driver’s licenses in Naples at my Brother-in-laws residence. All we needed was his utility bill and a sworn statement that we lived there.
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Old 02-19-2020, 08:59 AM   #15
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You cannot register to vote with only a St Brendan’s Isle address. It is a commercial address and is well known to the Clay County voter registration people. You need either utility bills, rent receipts or an affidavit swearing you are resident in a Florida address by the actual resident. The information on the SBI website is out of date ever since Clay County changed the rules.
The same now applies to Florida drivers licenses ever since Real ID rules took effect. You need to prove a residential address, not just a mail service.
I believe SBI worked with the state and resolved those issues. I have an explanitory email from them back home which I will find when I get back.
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Old 02-19-2020, 09:34 AM   #16
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St. Brendand’s Isle looks interesting. We are seeing our accountant next week and will have to eventually deal with the NJ ‘’exit’’ tax. Don’t think we can escape NJ without paying that. Florida residency is a real possibility. We’ll have to weigh it all out. Right now up to our necks getting out of the house and especially my shop of 37 years.
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Old 02-19-2020, 09:35 AM   #17
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Actually, I switched to St Brenda s Isle (SBI) last February and everything worked as their web site states. The marina/rv address on Bulkhead Rd worked for voting....and the main address is a mailing address. SBI has done well staying on top of it based on my readings and experienced.

The big deal is using a permanent address for a driver's license and some banks where people are having issues. But I found the same in NJ as it is federal regulations on what addresses work or not. Turns out a rental receipt from a marina will qualify you, afterwards I have heard changing the license address is less of a big deal.

Banks now are coming up with some strange rules. For 3 weeks I have gone round and round with Capital one over a credit card.I don't have a piece of paper that satisfied all their requirements.. My 50 year old Social Security card didn't meet their standard even after 2 supervisor level reviews. My tax returns didn't work because I dont use a paid preparer. My 1099s dont work because they no longer print my whole SSN on them. I dont have W2s because I dont have an employer and my 1099R from the USCG no longer used the whole SSN but my military number designed to PROTECT my SSN.

So even though Capital One really wanted me to have one of their cards...the banking and ID requirements the government wants is getting strange unless you are a homeowner with mail going there....and even then not always enough.
We did all of this in FL early 2019. Yes, SBI has another physical address that is used for voter registration. It worked without a hitch.

The current process in FL for live aboard driver's licenses is to use the boat registration or USCG documentation number as your street address, then Green Cove Springs for city/state, etc. Makes sense, as that is where you "live". Our driver's licenses say "DO 177xxxx" for the street address. Lots of strange looks from people checking......

For banks/credit cards, we just kept calling and applying until we found one that accepted whatever addresses, etc. we had. They got our business.
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Old 02-19-2020, 09:46 AM   #18
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What is the NJ “exit tax”? Never heard of such a thing.
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Old 02-19-2020, 09:58 AM   #19
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+1 on SBI. We have not had any issues with banking, licenses, insurance, voting, etc.
It is possible to operate almost totally electronically, so we do not get much mail. But what we get is handled very well by SBI.
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Old 02-19-2020, 10:21 AM   #20
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What is the NJ “exit tax”? Never heard of such a thing.
Caught my attention too. A quick Google found the following. Sounds like they want pre-payment of sales' tax at sale of house versus waiting to collect during next year's state income tax filing. Should be a net-net zero except for the float on the $$$.

https://www.untracht.com/news-insigh...rsey-exit-tax/
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