I have a question for all the permanent travellers out there. What do you do when asked for a residential address if you really do not have one? For car, caravan, boat and any other vehicle registration, one is meant to have an address where said vehicles are "garaged". When we begin to travel full time in a year or so, the house will be sold and our address will be the great big backyard of Oz. We don't want to have a permanent address again until we find just the right spot, it may take years! Of course we will have an email address which is ideal for paying bills, but apparently it is not acceptable as a "residential" address. We do not want to impose on friends or relatives for mail etc. The post office supplies a forwarding of mail service and if it is arranged properly, is more than an adequate service.
As registration car stickers are no longer required, we would like to see a national registration system set up which would allow people to register their vehicle according to make, model, VIN number etc. with a "special" notation e.g. permanent travellers. As a registered nurse, there is now a national registration board which allows me to work anywhere in the country with one registration instead of 7 as previously; took a long time but it finally happened. Back in 2011 when we travelled to WA, we inadvertently forgot to re-register the car and the nightmare followed us back home to Victoria. We also guess the issue with compulsory voting would be in the too hard basket also. What thoughts do you have on the subject?
Dougwe said
04:56 PM Aug 1, 2014
I will keep a eagle eye on this thread Robyn and Phillip, as I will be doing just what you are talking about within a few months.
I have looked through the search area but can only find reference to friends or Family and mail redirection businesses. I am interested in rego, insurance etc and the famous dreaded Centrelink, sorry for that dirty word.
D and D said
05:14 PM Aug 1, 2014
Use a PO Box. We haven't found anywhere yet that won't accept it as a residential address (oops, forgot about eBay) and we need somewhere for non-electronic mail to be delivered and collected by Di's son who forwards it to us regularly.
In regards to national registration - we can't even get national road rules let alone vehicle registration and third party so I won't be holding my breath.
Glenelg said
05:17 PM Aug 1, 2014
i don't know the answer to that.
i am lucky have to sons that i can use there place to do all that stuff .
Oz Gypsy said
05:44 PM Aug 1, 2014
We use a friend's address as our residential address for all purposes, with their permission of course. They send our mail to us in Express post bags to wherever we are when we ask for it.
It is an unfortunate fact of life that most authorities cannot deal with you unless you have a physical address. Some people use a caravan park as their address even though they do not live there. The problem with that comes when you are sent snail mail and it is returned to sender.
As for voting in elections - you change your electoral status to "Itinerant Voter" using the last address you were enrolled at. You can then vote as an absentee in Federal and State elections, but not Local Government, for that electorate. If you choose not to vote they will strike you off the electoral roll at some stage but there is no penalty. We have been registered as Itinerant voters for the last 8 years and have voted at each election wherever we happen to be.
Hope this helps
RobandFlip said
06:08 PM Aug 1, 2014
Hi everyone,
Fantastic information many thanks, particularly about the voting, did not know that was an option. We already have a PO Box address so we may keep that.
Your advice is greatly appreciated,
RobandFlip
Peter_n_Margaret said
06:43 PM Aug 1, 2014
For vehicle registration, the "garaging address" need not be the same as the "postal address". They might be in 2 different States.
You don't need a "residential address".
Cheers, Peter
-- Edited by Peter_n_Margaret on Friday 1st of August 2014 06:44:14 PM
snap1946 said
07:17 PM Aug 1, 2014
I use my daughter's addy and she scans all my mail and emails it to us
snap
Dunmowin said
08:03 PM Aug 1, 2014
Not sure what state you are in, however, your drivers licence will still require a residential address, as will your vehicle insurance. Our mailing address is my sister, who receives, scans or advises me by email, then forwards in express post envelope once a months to where ever we are (c/- post office) The only cost involved is the express post envelopes, which I supply and pay for.
As for "As for voting in elections - you change your electoral status to "Itinerant Voter" using the last address you were enrolled at. You can then vote as an absentee in Federal and State elections, but not Local Government, for that electorate. If you choose not to vote they will strike you off the electoral roll at some stage but there is no penalty. We have been registered as Itinerant voters for the last 8 years and have voted at each election wherever we happen to be." (snipped from Oz Gyps) I think you will find you only have to vote in a Federal Election, not state or local. But you still have to have that "residential address" We have been listed as Itinerant Votesr for the past three years, and have only had to vote in one federal election since then.
banjo said
09:20 PM Aug 1, 2014
You only need a postal address, which then becomes your garaging address for insurance and other important items.
You can use a family member of good friend, doesn't really matter, so long as you have one. We use our daughters home address and she checks any mail and either emails me details or forwards the items to us wherever we are.
Worked for us for over 2 1/2 years so far.
Gundog said
07:39 AM Aug 2, 2014
Gee what a thought provoking thread.
Thanks for the information its gold, as we prepare for our life on the road its one of the few things we had to consider. Most likely we will use our sons address for the important things.
My preferred address is "The 42nd Gum Tree on the left on the right bank just over the Bridge"
One thing to consider is if you are preparing for life on the road, start now and select the email option for any accounts etc, currently we receive very little snail mail usually junk, on the health side of thinks as your doctor for a copy of your medical file that you can take with you. We have done this in the past.
Golddetectornomad said
09:49 AM Aug 2, 2014
S.A Registrar won't accept P.O. Box as your residential address.....we left Port Lincoln January 2010 with P.O. Box Number for the big lap howver decided to stay in Bendigo for a while and as soon as we advised that we were in Victoria at a rented address, Victoria then requires you to change all your vehicles and new number plates have to be issued and of course the fee to re-inspect your van by Victorian Registrar....S.A. Registrar would not allow us to re-register our vehicles there as they would not accept our genuine P.O. Box there, and of course our house was rented out and could not be our Residential address any longer...as we had to change for Polling Address as well...... Be careful of any advice that states there are no problems with your "Residential Address' as I could not talk my way out of our situation which I believe others would be in similar boat as us.... O.K. if you keep moving but if you advise another 'Residential' address in another State your have to abide by their laws...we were at that Victorian address for 6 months.......our Daughter and son in law who was soldier at Puckapunyal Vic living on base, bought a house, in that area and had not advised their "new" home address on their Licences when they were picked up in random roadside search in Victoria..each fined approx. $190 for not advising new 'address'. to Victorian Registrar...he was a soldier who had come back from deployment overseas to Pucka.... Don't expect any tender mercies from cash strapped State Governments....DO make sure you know exactly what you are doing re Insurances and 'where garaged' etc if you are going to give a dodgy address IMO...sounds fine in theory with the operative word being 'Fine'...there are many ways for them to work out your movements...Victorian Toll Stations check your interstate Registrations as well particularly if you have not paid in advance....random roadside inspections also can leave you vulnerable if they start asking questions.....Hoo Roo
-- Edited by Golddetectornomad on Saturday 2nd of August 2014 09:54:22 AM
banjo said
11:16 AM Aug 2, 2014
In reality a Caravan Park can be your residential address, but would be a pain changing it every time you moved.
We spent last year in the Eastern states but our rego and licences are WA, our registered postal address is WA. We are registered as Itinerant voters.
The state law is if you "live" in one state for more than 3 months then you must change your rego/licence etc. we live full time on the road, I could have crossed a state border yesterday or last month. They do not know or care, so long as we are licenced and rego'ed.
If we bought a new house or a block of land then we become legally based in that state, simple.
Our insurer, Ken Tame know we travel full time, our rego and licences are all legal and up to date, example, we get pinged for speeding, it gets sent to our postal address and forwarded on to us, wherever we are at the time.
There are literally thousands of grey nomads traveling full time, does anyone honestly think they go running to change their licence and rego for every state they are in after 3 months stay ?
The laws are made for permanent residential interstaters not grey nomad travelers.
RobandFlip said
11:56 AM Aug 2, 2014
Hi everyone,
You are so right Goldectornomad, it is impossible to travel honestly because of the way the system is set up. We will have to rely on a family member or friends to help us out with the mail etc. This was not our intention in this wonderful "free" land. It seems our freedoms are curtailed more than we realise. Keeping tabs on the grey nomads in coming years is going to be a challenge for authorities
cheers,
RobandFlip
_wombat_ said
03:41 PM Aug 2, 2014
I just put C/o The Hole
Herb said
04:44 PM Aug 2, 2014
We use our sons address as a residential address for mail, he lives in melbourne.
Our truck is registered in Victoria and our caravan in SA. To satisfy roads departments you need 3 forms of identification ( passport/licence, proof of address in that state, medicare card)
Ok so this is how we did it and why
We bought our truck in Victoria when we first arrived there. to do this I got a Vic Licence and started bank account using sons address as 'home', medicare is medicare can be used in any state.
We bought the van in SA. I changed my Licence to a SA licence booked into caravan park and got receipt and took these two forms with medicare card to Sa Roads.
On both occasions, on the forms it asks how you want notification of renewal and correspondence. In this box you tick email. Now all mail etc will come to email. With no rego stickers this is no issue and you pay by internet using email as reference. For mail you can open a post office box and direct mail to it. Then when you get to another town you can ask the post office to forward mail to where you are. Personally we prefer all correspondence to be by email. this is for two reasons. first you dont have to wait a week to get mail and secondly when replying you can use as reference the email you were sent. We have all sorts of places send us emails to an account set up for it ( dont use your personal email). banks, shops, government departments etc.
As for the change of registration to state you are in, well we were advised by Vic Roads this isnt necessary if not permanent resident of the state. Imagine what would happen if they required all grey nomads on their migration to register their vehicles in each state. If pulled up and asked all you have to say is you are a temporary worker/vacationer in the state and intend to return to your designated state when finished. IF anything they may require you to change your licence if driving part of your job.
One last thing you could consider, some people including some on here i think will act as a mail service for you for a small monthly fee. For this you get to use their address and any mail sent to them is forwarded or disposed of. This may sound dodgy however some of these people are actually mail forwarding companies and deal with a lot mail including mail for some companies where the stake holders wish to remain anonymous. I hope this helps.
Golddetectornomad said
10:29 PM Aug 2, 2014
Lets hope none of us develop 'Old Timers' disease.. if we get lost we wont be able to even state which State we live in let alone our address...
I'm a former Queenslander who then had everything registered in S.A. and am now an honorary Victorian with everything registered here...can't wait to continue our NSW leg of our trip....perhaps we are not travelling fast enough....
One thing is for certain we, who no longer fit their neat little boxs', will need to be given certainty as to what we should do in our circumstances and exactly what our status is with regards Insurances, Registrations etc......remember when unemployed of no fixed abode generally related to that figure with the wrapped wine bottle in his back pocket soundly asleep on the park bench.....now its our collective status....according to the authorities anyway....don't do anything that brings you into notice of a newspaper report..think of the embarrassment when your aged classmates see you described as unemployed of no fixed abode.....how could you ever attend another school reunion...?....just restricted to Happy Hours with other like "bums"...lol..Hoo Roo
dazz49 said
11:36 PM Aug 7, 2014
A suggestion if I may, Should you sell up and go on the road full time, registration of motor vehicles and insurances are still charged at the rate of your last known residential address by the Government and insurance companies. Now if you are a city slicker you pay quite a bit more for vehicle insurance and registration than do rural folk. The trick is to advise motor registration offices and your insurer of the address of a country caravan park or a friends rural property as the garaging address of your vehicles & have a postal address such as a private box where you know all renewals will be sent. My insurer advised me today that I will save $120 on comprehensive just on the tow vehicle by having a country address.
Daz
Hello everyone,
I have a question for all the permanent travellers out there. What do you do when asked for a residential address if you really do not have one? For car, caravan, boat and any other vehicle registration, one is meant to have an address where said vehicles are "garaged". When we begin to travel full time in a year or so, the house will be sold and our address will be the great big backyard of Oz. We don't want to have a permanent address again until we find just the right spot, it may take years! Of course we will have an email address which is ideal for paying bills, but apparently it is not acceptable as a "residential" address. We do not want to impose on friends or relatives for mail etc. The post office supplies a forwarding of mail service and if it is arranged properly, is more than an adequate service.
As registration car stickers are no longer required, we would like to see a national registration system set up which would allow people to register their vehicle according to make, model, VIN number etc. with a "special" notation e.g. permanent travellers. As a registered nurse, there is now a national registration board which allows me to work anywhere in the country with one registration instead of 7 as previously; took a long time but it finally happened. Back in 2011 when we travelled to WA, we inadvertently forgot to re-register the car and the nightmare followed us back home to Victoria. We also guess the issue with compulsory voting would be in the too hard basket also. What thoughts do you have on the subject?
I will keep a eagle eye on this thread Robyn and Phillip, as I will be doing just what you are talking about within a few months.
I have looked through the search area but can only find reference to friends or Family and mail redirection businesses. I am interested in rego, insurance etc and the famous dreaded Centrelink, sorry for that dirty word.
In regards to national registration - we can't even get national road rules let alone vehicle registration and third party so I won't be holding my breath.
i am lucky have to sons that i can use there place to do all that stuff .
We use a friend's address as our residential address for all purposes, with their permission of course. They send our mail to us in Express post bags to wherever we are when we ask for it.
It is an unfortunate fact of life that most authorities cannot deal with you unless you have a physical address. Some people use a caravan park as their address even though they do not live there. The problem with that comes when you are sent snail mail and it is returned to sender.
As for voting in elections - you change your electoral status to "Itinerant Voter" using the last address you were enrolled at. You can then vote as an absentee in Federal and State elections, but not Local Government, for that electorate. If you choose not to vote they will strike you off the electoral roll at some stage but there is no penalty. We have been registered as Itinerant voters for the last 8 years and have voted at each election wherever we happen to be.
Hope this helps
Fantastic information many thanks, particularly about the voting, did not know that was an option. We already have a PO Box address so we may keep that.
Your advice is greatly appreciated,
RobandFlip
For vehicle registration, the "garaging address" need not be the same as the "postal address". They might be in 2 different States.
You don't need a "residential address".
Cheers,
Peter
-- Edited by Peter_n_Margaret on Friday 1st of August 2014 06:44:14 PM
I use my daughter's addy and she scans all my mail and emails it to us
snap
Not sure what state you are in, however, your drivers licence will still require a residential address, as will your vehicle insurance. Our mailing address is my sister, who receives, scans or advises me by email, then forwards in express post envelope once a months to where ever we are (c/- post office) The only cost involved is the express post envelopes, which I supply and pay for.
As for "As for voting in elections - you change your electoral status to "Itinerant Voter" using the last address you were enrolled at. You can then vote as an absentee in Federal and State elections, but not Local Government, for that electorate. If you choose not to vote they will strike you off the electoral roll at some stage but there is no penalty. We have been registered as Itinerant voters for the last 8 years and have voted at each election wherever we happen to be." (snipped from Oz Gyps) I think you will find you only have to vote in a Federal Election, not state or local. But you still have to have that "residential address" We have been listed as Itinerant Votesr for the past three years, and have only had to vote in one federal election since then.
You can use a family member of good friend, doesn't really matter, so long as you have one. We use our daughters home address and she checks any mail and either emails me details or forwards the items to us wherever we are.
Worked for us for over 2 1/2 years so far.
Gee what a thought provoking thread.
Thanks for the information its gold, as we prepare for our life on the road its one of the few things we had to consider. Most likely we will use our sons address for the important things.
My preferred address is "The 42nd Gum Tree on the left on the right bank just over the Bridge"
One thing to consider is if you are preparing for life on the road, start now and select the email option for any accounts etc, currently we receive very little snail mail usually junk, on the health side of thinks as your doctor for a copy of your medical file that you can take with you. We have done this in the past.
S.A Registrar won't accept P.O. Box as your residential address.....we left Port Lincoln January 2010 with P.O. Box Number for the big lap howver decided to stay in Bendigo for a while and as soon as we advised that we were in Victoria at a rented address, Victoria then requires you to change all your vehicles and new number plates have to be issued and of course the fee to re-inspect your van by Victorian Registrar....S.A. Registrar would not allow us to re-register our vehicles there as they would not accept our genuine P.O. Box there, and of course our house was rented out and could not be our Residential address any longer...as we had to change for Polling Address as well......
Be careful of any advice that states there are no problems with your "Residential Address' as I could not talk my way out of our situation which I believe others would be in similar boat as us....
O.K. if you keep moving but if you advise another 'Residential' address in another State your have to abide by their laws...we were at that Victorian address for 6 months.......our Daughter and son in law who was soldier at Puckapunyal Vic living on base, bought a house, in that area and had not advised their "new" home address on their Licences when they were picked up in random roadside search in Victoria..each fined approx. $190 for not advising new 'address'. to Victorian Registrar...he was a soldier who had come back from deployment overseas to Pucka....
Don't expect any tender mercies from cash strapped State Governments....DO make sure you know exactly what you are doing re Insurances and 'where garaged' etc if you are going to give a dodgy address IMO...sounds fine in theory with the operative word being 'Fine'...there are many ways for them to work out your movements...Victorian Toll Stations check your interstate Registrations as well particularly if you have not paid in advance....random roadside inspections also can leave you vulnerable if they start asking questions.....Hoo Roo
-- Edited by Golddetectornomad on Saturday 2nd of August 2014 09:54:22 AM
We spent last year in the Eastern states but our rego and licences are WA, our registered postal address is WA. We are registered as Itinerant voters.
The state law is if you "live" in one state for more than 3 months then you must change your rego/licence etc. we live full time on the road, I could have crossed a state border yesterday or last month. They do not know or care, so long as we are licenced and rego'ed.
If we bought a new house or a block of land then we become legally based in that state, simple.
Our insurer, Ken Tame know we travel full time, our rego and licences are all legal and up to date, example, we get pinged for speeding, it gets sent to our postal address and forwarded on to us, wherever we are at the time.
There are literally thousands of grey nomads traveling full time, does anyone honestly think they go running to change their licence and rego for every state they are in after 3 months stay ?
The laws are made for permanent residential interstaters not grey nomad travelers.
Hi everyone,
You are so right Goldectornomad, it is impossible to travel honestly because of the way the system is set up. We will have to rely on a family member or friends to help us out with the mail etc. This was not our intention in this wonderful "free" land. It seems our freedoms are curtailed more than we realise. Keeping tabs on the grey nomads in coming years is going to be a challenge for authorities
cheers,
RobandFlip
I just put C/o The Hole
Our truck is registered in Victoria and our caravan in SA. To satisfy roads departments you need 3 forms of identification ( passport/licence, proof of address in that state, medicare card)
Ok so this is how we did it and why
We bought our truck in Victoria when we first arrived there. to do this I got a Vic Licence and started bank account using sons address as 'home', medicare is medicare can be used in any state.
We bought the van in SA. I changed my Licence to a SA licence booked into caravan park and got receipt and took these two forms with medicare card to Sa Roads.
On both occasions, on the forms it asks how you want notification of renewal and correspondence. In this box you tick email. Now all mail etc will come to email. With no rego stickers this is no issue and you pay by internet using email as reference. For mail you can open a post office box and direct mail to it. Then when you get to another town you can ask the post office to forward mail to where you are. Personally we prefer all correspondence to be by email. this is for two reasons. first you dont have to wait a week to get mail and secondly when replying you can use as reference the email you were sent. We have all sorts of places send us emails to an account set up for it ( dont use your personal email). banks, shops, government departments etc.
As for the change of registration to state you are in, well we were advised by Vic Roads this isnt necessary if not permanent resident of the state. Imagine what would happen if they required all grey nomads on their migration to register their vehicles in each state. If pulled up and asked all you have to say is you are a temporary worker/vacationer in the state and intend to return to your designated state when finished. IF anything they may require you to change your licence if driving part of your job.
One last thing you could consider, some people including some on here i think will act as a mail service for you for a small monthly fee. For this you get to use their address and any mail sent to them is forwarded or disposed of. This may sound dodgy however some of these people are actually mail forwarding companies and deal with a lot mail including mail for some companies where the stake holders wish to remain anonymous. I hope this helps.
I'm a former Queenslander who then had everything registered in S.A. and am now an honorary Victorian with everything registered here...can't wait to continue our NSW leg of our trip....perhaps we are not travelling fast enough....
One thing is for certain we, who no longer fit their neat little boxs', will need to be given certainty as to what we should do in our circumstances and exactly what our status is with regards Insurances, Registrations etc......remember when unemployed of no fixed abode generally related to that figure with the wrapped wine bottle in his back pocket soundly asleep on the park bench.....now its our collective status....according to the authorities anyway....don't do anything that brings you into notice of a newspaper report..think of the embarrassment when your aged classmates see you described as unemployed of no fixed abode.....how could you ever attend another school reunion...?....just restricted to Happy Hours with other like "bums"...lol..Hoo Roo
Daz