Maybe a stupid question, but...

[prosodic]

When you become a legal residence of one state, how do you lose your legal residence status in another? Lance and I were discussing this the other day. He's always been a legal resident of Minnesota, and the same goes for me of Ohio. But now that we're buying property in Washington state, we'll be legal residents there.

Of course, we'll be registering to vote in Kent, but not everyone who relocates is a registered voter. And we'll eventually be getting Washington drivers' licenses too, and certainly our cars will have Washington plates. And we'll both be employed in Washington.

However, I don't think most of these things will alert either Ohio or Minnesota to the fact that we aren't legal residents there anymore (although I would think that registering to vote should do it, but I'm not sure about this).

So, what say you, Live Journal people? I know many of you have relocated. What are we supposed to do, if anything?

Comments

[anmorata.livejournal.com]

When you do your taxes, you're probably going to file as a partial resident in both states, depending on when you move. That, changing over your driver's license, paying Washington taxes (don't forget to have Lance change his Home of Record on his LES), and registering to vote will give up your Ohio residency.

I never gave up my residency.. I never changed the plates on my car, never registered to vote in another state, and most importantly, we never changed the Home of Record or paid taxes elsewhere. This was important, because I knew I'd be coming back home at some point. I'm glad we did it this way - I had to provide all kinds of documentation showing that I was still an Ohio resident where it came to tuition at Kent State.

Honestly, though? The only place it really gets noticed is taxes. Other than that, the state doesn't really care if you're a resident, but if you are, they want their tax money. :P Keep a close eye on it, though - I still get tax forms from cities I've lived in in the past, despite not living there for years. Not all records departments are up to speed and accurate. You may find yourself getting some odd things in the mail, but since you've been abroad for almost 4 years, that may not be the case.

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info. Washington state actually doesn't have a tax, which is part of the reason we want to be legal residents there. But I think we become legal residents automatically by virtue of meeting certain criteria, one of which is buying property in the state.

I'll get an Ohio tax form for this year, but hopefully I won't have one for 2008.

We may end up staying there indefinitely, if things go well with Boeing and Lance has a good shot at a civilian position there. So for the foreseeable future, it makes much more sense to change our legal residence to Washington. I don't think I'll live in Ohio again and I doubt we'll ever settle in Minnesota (not if I have anything to say about it, we won't...it's too damn cold).