Two living rooms aren't as exciting as we thought
December 12, 2012 4:14 PM Subscribe
Have you ever lived in a different state from your spouse and still had everything held jointly? How did you handle questions of residency, normally mundane paperwork like insurance, and keeping everything organized? Full details within.
Mrs. fireoyster and I live in different states and I seek your advice on how to keep us both legal and somewhat sane. I live in state W, she lives in state T.**
We have two cars, one in each state, and both are titled solely in my name and both are registered in state W. Vehicle insurance is written as though we are both in state W and we both carry state W driver licenses with current addresses. Because I have easily-documented income, both of us are on the lease for her/our apartment in state T; she is not on my lease in state W but she is on some of the utilities from when we both lived in state W. Each apartment has property insurance written by a company in the respective states. Neither state has an income tax.
Specific questions:
- Should I change the vehicle registration to state T for the car she primarily drives? I haven't done this yet because it would cost a couple hundred dollars to register in state T and car insurance becomes more complicated. We'd lose the multi-car discount from our current company and I don't know for sure if each would be covered driving the other car when in the other state. If there is a legal reason to switch, I'll spend the cash though.
- Should I change the legal ownership of the car she drives the most to her name? She doesn't care and has told me she prefers that my name be on everything so I can do the paperwork she doesn't like to do. Again, if there's a legal reason to switch, we can do that.
- Our health insurance is provided by my employer in state W but with a nationwide network. My employer doesn't have a way to say that I live in one place and she lives in another so our address on it is my address in state W. So far, this hasn't caused problems but could it, especially in an emergency? (Coverage for out-of-network emergency situations is quite good.) Do employer group health insurance policies care much if you're hurt or sick away from your stated address?
- What am I missing? It seems like the big question is one of residency: does she legally reside in state T or state W? Am I stressing too much about it and we should just leave stuff as-is?
** If it matters, this isn't a separation as prelude to divorce or some other relationship problem.
Mrs. fireoyster and I live in different states and I seek your advice on how to keep us both legal and somewhat sane. I live in state W, she lives in state T.**
We have two cars, one in each state, and both are titled solely in my name and both are registered in state W. Vehicle insurance is written as though we are both in state W and we both carry state W driver licenses with current addresses. Because I have easily-documented income, both of us are on the lease for her/our apartment in state T; she is not on my lease in state W but she is on some of the utilities from when we both lived in state W. Each apartment has property insurance written by a company in the respective states. Neither state has an income tax.
Specific questions:
- Should I change the vehicle registration to state T for the car she primarily drives? I haven't done this yet because it would cost a couple hundred dollars to register in state T and car insurance becomes more complicated. We'd lose the multi-car discount from our current company and I don't know for sure if each would be covered driving the other car when in the other state. If there is a legal reason to switch, I'll spend the cash though.
- Should I change the legal ownership of the car she drives the most to her name? She doesn't care and has told me she prefers that my name be on everything so I can do the paperwork she doesn't like to do. Again, if there's a legal reason to switch, we can do that.
- Our health insurance is provided by my employer in state W but with a nationwide network. My employer doesn't have a way to say that I live in one place and she lives in another so our address on it is my address in state W. So far, this hasn't caused problems but could it, especially in an emergency? (Coverage for out-of-network emergency situations is quite good.) Do employer group health insurance policies care much if you're hurt or sick away from your stated address?
- What am I missing? It seems like the big question is one of residency: does she legally reside in state T or state W? Am I stressing too much about it and we should just leave stuff as-is?
** If it matters, this isn't a separation as prelude to divorce or some other relationship problem.
Your insurance cares about where the car lives, because their liability and accident probabilities are determined in part by that. There may be difficulty or even lack of coverage if there's an accident and they discover you've been keeping it in State X when it's insured in State Y.
posted by zippy at 5:26 PM on December 12, 2012
posted by zippy at 5:26 PM on December 12, 2012
Your questions point out the challenges we in the United States have when the states are less than united on legal questions. It's one that many fulltime RVers, traveling construction workers and traveling health care workers deal with all the time.
IANAL, but based on my own experience, you need to investigate how your two states deal with definitions of "residence" and "domicile". Most define "residence" as the physical place where you are currently staying, but your "domicile" is the place to which, though you aren't there now, you intend to return. You can leave that place for weeks, as on a vacation, months, as on a temporary work assignment or for schooling, or years, as an RVer might, but it continues to be the legal address you use for tax forms, voting, getting your drivers and vehicle licenses, etc. The more ties you can demonstrate to your domicile -- from owning property there, to it being the home of your spouse, to keeping active bank accounts there in your name -- the more likely it will be accepted by various authorities as your permanent address. From your description, it sounds likely that state W would be considered the domicile state for both you and your wife.
Vehicle insurance rates are usually tied to the place where the vehicle is "garaged." However, assuming your insurance provider is licensed in both states, you can generally keep your multi-vehicle policy with your domicile address while acknowledging that one vehicle is "garaged" in another state. Health insurance, with the exception of highly localized HMOs, also generally provides for care while away from your domicile.
Note I'm saying "generally" and "likely" a lot. Some states are notorious for aggressively seeking their share of the tax apple by claiming you as a resident because you have physically been within their borders for some period of time -- California or Florida are examples I've heard, where folks reportedly have been fined for failing to re-register their vehicles after a 30-day visit. Others states are so relaxed that they make it easy to establish a domicile with little more than the physical address of a forwarding service there where you can receive mail. Texas and South Dakota are popular "home" states for fulltime RVers for that reason.
So you need to do a bit of homework on the rules in these particular states. Once you pick a domicile state, the more you can do to tie yourself and your spouse to that state, the better. If the states border each other, reciprocity agreements will likely make your life easier in terms of taxes.
posted by peakcomm at 5:26 PM on December 12, 2012
IANAL, but based on my own experience, you need to investigate how your two states deal with definitions of "residence" and "domicile". Most define "residence" as the physical place where you are currently staying, but your "domicile" is the place to which, though you aren't there now, you intend to return. You can leave that place for weeks, as on a vacation, months, as on a temporary work assignment or for schooling, or years, as an RVer might, but it continues to be the legal address you use for tax forms, voting, getting your drivers and vehicle licenses, etc. The more ties you can demonstrate to your domicile -- from owning property there, to it being the home of your spouse, to keeping active bank accounts there in your name -- the more likely it will be accepted by various authorities as your permanent address. From your description, it sounds likely that state W would be considered the domicile state for both you and your wife.
Vehicle insurance rates are usually tied to the place where the vehicle is "garaged." However, assuming your insurance provider is licensed in both states, you can generally keep your multi-vehicle policy with your domicile address while acknowledging that one vehicle is "garaged" in another state. Health insurance, with the exception of highly localized HMOs, also generally provides for care while away from your domicile.
Note I'm saying "generally" and "likely" a lot. Some states are notorious for aggressively seeking their share of the tax apple by claiming you as a resident because you have physically been within their borders for some period of time -- California or Florida are examples I've heard, where folks reportedly have been fined for failing to re-register their vehicles after a 30-day visit. Others states are so relaxed that they make it easy to establish a domicile with little more than the physical address of a forwarding service there where you can receive mail. Texas and South Dakota are popular "home" states for fulltime RVers for that reason.
So you need to do a bit of homework on the rules in these particular states. Once you pick a domicile state, the more you can do to tie yourself and your spouse to that state, the better. If the states border each other, reciprocity agreements will likely make your life easier in terms of taxes.
posted by peakcomm at 5:26 PM on December 12, 2012
It's been said above, but the insurance company mainly cares where the car lives not particularly where it's registered/plated. For a while, my car was in my mom's name and she lived in Louisiana and the note was in her name but I mainly drove it while living in North Carolina, so Geico was fine insuring it in North Carolina. I even got into an accident with a Georgia driver's license and while the cop had several questions, it was never really a problem from the insurance side of things. (I'd be more comfortable trying this with a big insurance company if only because they've probably already seen this situation/way more complicated things). However! Check the state laws because several are pretty aggressive about calling you "resident", especially now that budgets are tight. Louisiana came after me a few years back for overdue taxes because I'd kept a Louisiana license and gotten some mail there while I was traveling around. Obviously, I had documentation to make the problem go away, but it was still a hassle.
For health insurance, if they're a big national provider, they can probably deal with it. A friend of mine has health insurance through BCBS of Texas despite living and working in California because that's where the company HQ is and has never had a problem getting into a BCBS provider. But, obviously, worth checking into.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:54 PM on December 12, 2012
For health insurance, if they're a big national provider, they can probably deal with it. A friend of mine has health insurance through BCBS of Texas despite living and working in California because that's where the company HQ is and has never had a problem getting into a BCBS provider. But, obviously, worth checking into.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:54 PM on December 12, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
Our health insurance is provided by me in State X but he's had no problem (so far) being covered in State Y. You should call the insurance company just to be sure, but if it's a nationwide network I don't see why it'd be a problem.
I legally reside in State X and he legally resides in State Y. It makes taxes a bit of a pain -- which is why we decided to outsource our taxes. I'm happy to pay someone else to do it so that we don't have to deal with the headache.
posted by blue_bicycle at 5:03 PM on December 12, 2012