License plates question?

[Jquillen]

Ok dumb question here but I recently moved to Iowa from Colorado. Rv went into storage and haven’t moved it for a year (sadly). But I can now get back at it. Big question is license plates. I know some people register in different states than they live. I’m also moving to California for a couple years and definitely don’t want to register there if I don’t have to.
Any experience or advice would really help.
Thank you.

[jjbbrewer]

It's anecdotal, but my father moved to California (Sandy Eggo specifically) from Colorado and drove his beater car there for about 4 months before a CHP pulled him over and nailed him for living there. I guess the cop had seen him commuting on Hwy 94 a couple of times and figured it out.

I'd think you might get away with it for longer with a RV, but the storage places there may have rules.

My advice would be to figure out how to avoid moving to California.

[Second Chance]

It depends on the state where it is currently registered and the state where you're going to be living. California is known for going after people like a bear after honey and you could end up with fines on top of registration fees. Full-timers deal with this by establishing legal domicile with an RVer-oriented mail forwarding service such as Escapees - but there's more to that than just having the mail service. Legal domicile issues (including vehicle registration, driver's licenses, voting, etc.) can get sticky and you need to be careful. You can read up on it here:

https://www.escapees.com/education/domicile/

Rob

[jkwilson]

Ok dumb question here but I recently moved to Iowa from Colorado. Rv went into storage and haven’t moved it for a year (sadly). But I can now get back at it. Big question is license plates. I know some people register in different states than they live. I’m also moving to California for a couple years and definitely don’t want to register there if I don’t have to.
Any experience or advice would really help.
Thank you.

Iowa requires vehicle registrations be done in Iowa within 30 days of establishing residency there. California only gives you 20 days. If the vehicle isn’t in the new state yet, you can usually wait.

[trailrydr]

It's anecdotal, but my father moved to California (Sandy Eggo specifically) from Colorado and drove his beater car there for about 4 months before a CHP pulled him over and nailed him for living there. I guess the cop had seen him commuting on Hwy 94 a couple of times and figured it out.

I'd think you might get away with it for longer with a RV, but the storage places there may have rules.

My advice would be to figure out how to avoid moving to California.

Yup. The T-shirt story I have is about a work colleague of mine who moved from MO to KS. We walked into work together one Friday and he told me he was curently living in KS. So I asked him, I notice you still got MO plates on your car, how long have you been living in KS? He said, 5 months. I then began to tell him about how his KS neighbors might turn him in if he looks like hes living there permenantly. And he says oh no they wont...... they're not paying attention.

Well, that following Monday, he came into work and asked me if I had turned him in? I asked why would I - I live in MO and Im glad your still paying taxes here.... he then said the city sent him a notice that he had 30 days to register his vehicles or he would be fined!

Needless to say, he got it done! LOL!!! Moral of the story..... dont trust your neighbors attention to details and get her done!

[Wileykid]

Back about 20-30 years ago in California, it was a big thing to register your "play" vehicle or trailer out of state to avoid paying state registration. It became bad enough that in the middle-upper class area's, a lot of the trucks and trailers were registered in Idaho, MO...etc. California being always "out" of money, began a crack down on it. They even had commercials to advise people on how to turn in your neighbor. My advise, if you keep it in California, pay the registration, they will proudly hammer you if you don't.

[Gronk1]

A coworker of mine back in '14 inherited a '06 Chevy dually out of Texas. She drove it everywhere in California for the next four years with the Texas plates on it. She then retired & moved to Washington state.
Never had a problem, never registered it in Ca. But I don't believe she ever got pulled over.
Gave me a BS story about being special Of course she also told me she got the same mileage towing as not towing.