I live in one state, my car will live in another state. Halp.

December 11, 2018 9:41 PM

I'm a full-time resident of California. I might acquire a car which is currently located in Montana, and I would like to continue owning and garaging it in Montana. How does the registration and insurance work in this scenario?

Snowflake details:
- If I can legally avoid registering the car in CA by never driving the car in CA, that's fine and dandy. I don't plan on ever importing this car to CA, and I'm OK with never taking it on a visit to CA either.
- I will have an address in MT that I'll garage the car at, but I won't actually be living there (basically it will be a vacation home) and I don't want to lie to the DMV.
- I may or may not conduct business in MT as a non-resident; I understand that if I do, I'll definitely need to maintain MT registration. Will I also need to register the car in CA even if it never sets foot in that state? (I don't think I can even do that without driving the thing 17 hours to my home in California?)

My Google-fu is failing me on this one. Surely I'm not the only person who acquires a vacation home in a different state and also wants to keep a car in that state, where "that state" is inconveniently far away from one's state of residence?

posted by serelliya to Travel & Transportation (6 answers total)

Best answer: This should be no problem. It's not even all that uncommon.

If your car is garaged in MT for most or all of the year, it is supposed to be registered in MT -- it might not be your residence, but in a funny way, it is your car's.

You'll just title/register your vehicle in Montana using your Montana address as your "residential address", with your California address as your "mailing address". Montana is even particularly good about this, as states go. You do this in person at your county treasurer's office in Montana. They won't blink at your California license/residency, as long as you can show a legitimate connection to the Montana address (in the county) that you're claiming.
posted by toxic at 10:58 PM on December 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Every state is different. When I had to deal with a similar but different situation in a different state, I contacted the state DMV directly. It took two tries to get a complete answer but since it was all by email it wasn't much trouble. The end result was an extra form that needed to be filled out in addition to the usual registration. Here is the contact information for Montana.
posted by metahawk at 11:00 PM on December 11, 2018

I've had a few times now where I had a license and address in one state, but my vehicle was registered in another state. It's never been an issue or raised any questions. There has always (in my limited experience) been a way to provide both the vehicle's location and your mailing address separately to the DMV, just as toxic describes above.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:34 AM on December 12, 2018

Best answer: This is actually something Montana is well known for, so you should expect no problem. However, if you do ever bring it back to California, they've caught on to this loophole and are enforcing the law (note that this is only applicable to cars driving around in California, leaving the car in Montana does not run afoul of the law).
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:35 AM on December 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Came to say what AzraelBrown said...Montana has EXTREMELY cheap registration, so many, many people's RVs have Montana plates. This is in no way illegal in Montana; in fact, they encourage it. Your home state, however, will feel differently. But yeah...if you're not driving it in your home state, you'll be home free.
posted by nosila at 6:53 AM on December 12, 2018

Best answer: I haven't seen anyone speak to the insurance issue, so just chiming in to say your car will be rated according to its garaging address. Also, talk to your agent about a storage policy.
posted by DrAstroZoom at 8:59 AM on December 12, 2018 [1 favorite]