In my last article, I spoke about choosing a domicile. Once you choose your domicile state, then you need to begin the process of changing over your residency. This includes things like getting your vehicle plates, your driver’s license, registering to vote, etc. To do most of these things, you have to set up where your mail will go.
Most RVers choose to use a mail service in their domicile state. Mail services differ widely. Some only receive your mail and send it to you. Others will scan your mail every day, send you a picture of the outside of the envelope, open and scan the mail if you would like, shred junk mail, and send it to you when you’re ready.
These are the big 3 mail services and their locations:
Escapees – Texas, Florida, & South Dakota
Dakota Post – South Dakota
St. Brendan Isle – Florida
Other options:
A friend or relative – I have friends that use this method and have great success with it. You would just need to have realistic expectations of the person helping you.
UPS Store – I have a few friends who use it, but I’m not completely sure how it works with residency and such. The UPS Store does provide you with a street address. I do not know if they do all the scanning and such that most people want or how they forward your mail to wherever you are.
A few words of caution:
In typical me fashion, I strive to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly about things.
PMB – All of the options above, with the exception of a friend or relative, are considered “personal mailboxes.” Under United State Postal Service rules, you may not create an address forward out of a personal mailbox. This means when it’s time to settle back into a sticks and bricks house, you will not be able to do a change of address and have your mail forwarded to your new address.
Keep in mind that this also affects you if your mail company goes out of business. There was a situation that arose just after we changed our residency to SD. Another mail company announced on a Friday afternoon that they no longer had the money to run their operations and they were going out of business effective immediately. Not only were their subscribers out the money they had paid to the company, they also had no way to get their mail forwarded to them.
I’m not trying to scare you away from using a mail company, but you need to be aware of all that comes with using one.
Cost – Again, with an exception of a friend or relative, these services cost money. Exactly how much depends of which company you go with and what services you require.
Banking – We have had some issues when trying to open new accounts as it relates to our PMB address. Most banks state that it is not a “legal” IRS address. Ultimately, with our business accounts, it came down to choosing a bank that would deal with our address. Again, this is where our mail service helped us out. They were able to give us a recommendation on “local” banks to use.
Voting Rights – There has been a push in recent times to revoke the voting rights of people using Escapees and St. Brendan Isle in Florida. This is something you should definitely ask about before making a decision for domicile and service to handle your mailings.
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