Community Forums

Rob-n-Lorrie · 06-21-2013, 05:02 PM

We just retired early and moved to Hilton Head, SC. We are full timers using the Hilton Head Island Motorcoach Resort as our home base, we bought a lot here. I just went to register the coach with DMV and found out we had to pay a property tax on the coach of close to $3000.00 per year. Ouch!! Does anyone know the best and cheapest place to register an rv. And how driver's licensing works to, would we have to have a license from that state as well. And how does buying health insurance work in this, would I have to have health insurance
in that state so I'd be paying out of network here in Hilton Head? A lot of questions, I know, but any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Rob

Sagamore · 06-21-2013, 07:39 PM

Yeah we are in upstate sc and pay property taxes every year on the mh. It should go down a little every year but, there are other states I would have sought residence in like Texas, s. Dakota, etc.

JMonroe · 06-22-2013, 09:30 AM

Simply because of your relative proximity, I might look into getting a Florida address and driver's license. There are mail services that operate out of Florida that you could use to establish residency - and to put on your driver's license and motorhome title. You wouldn't have to use that address for anything else.

I don't know the particulars, but one of the owners here in our "home park" (you should come up for a visit sometime) lives in Columbia but has Florida plates on his rig. We established our legal residence in South Dakota, a decision that was validated when I called a few years ago to find out what the annual taxes would be on our motorhome and Jeep here in South Carolina. What a commerce killer!

WheelingIt · 06-22-2013, 09:41 AM

You can register in another state as long as you don't exceed stay times in SC and/or whatever rules they have to declare domicile. I don't know what the particular laws for SC are, but I'd check into it and make sure you can legally get around them. Usually it's a question of you can only stay x months in state, and must stay out of state the rest of the year, but some states have additional rules too. If you can get around them, then you can go ahead and register the coach in FL, just south of you. Tax-free state and several mail forwarders who operate there and will give you an address to use for drivers license, etc.