license NY Class R license

[Dream_Chaser]

Hello All!! My First post here.

I currently don’t have an RV. I am looking at getting one around the time I sell my house.

I am looking to go full time RV in the next 1-3yrs. I live in upstate NY and they require a road test to get a license “R” to drive anything over 26,000 gvwr including a toad.

 I’ve been looking around and even called the local CDL school to find a place or person that can help me take the road test. In order to do this in NY I need access to an RV that is 26000 gvwr and someone that has the “R” endorsement to take the road test.

Does anyone out there know of any places that help people get this endorsement?

Thanks

[Kirk W]

Welcome to the Escapee forums! It is great having you here and I hope that you get the information that you need. You bring up a very good question and I hope that someone here knows more about the issue than I, as living in TX I only know what happens here. In our case the RV owners generally drive with the license that they have for a time and then take the test in their own RV, after having driven it to the testing location. 

[Jim Gell]

Sorry, but I can't answer your question directly. But I have some food for thought. 

Are you sure you will really need a NYS license?   When we left NYS to full time RV,  we decided to use SD as our domicile state and I just traded in my NYS licence in for a SD one.  Have you decided where you will domicile?   In SD a regular license is good to drive any RV. From what I hear, Texas has a fairly simple road test requirement.  There is plenty of info on that posted in these forums.  

You could also save on sales tax depending on where you register the RV. We went to an extreme and formed an LLC in Montana where there is no sales tax.  I can't say that I would definitely do that again. At the time, it seemed like our best option. Timing played a role in that for us.  Before we left NYS,  we were located where state and local sales tax combined was just shy of 9%. We did not want to wait to purchase our RV until after we left NYS, or pay all that tax to a state we were leaving. 

Another thing that may have helped us deal with the timing issue, was that we had a place outside NY to take the RV (HDT, 5th wheel and smart car)  so I never needed to bring them to NYS while we were transitioning to full time. 

Timing is an issue that you will need to work out. Your situation is no doubt different, but in a nutshell that is what we did.  

[Dream_Chaser]

Thanks for the welcome and the responses!!

As far as domicile goes I’m still researching that. It’s actually a tough choice. So many things to consider when making that choice. I have to sell my house first then hit the road.

The main reason for getting the NY license is that when I purchase an RV, I’ll most likely need to fly out to pick it up and drive it back then Load up and drive to the state I will domicile in and transfer license over. Not sure yet how to domicile before I have the RV and then get license in that state. Unfortunately I didn’t take advantage of when my dad was full timer and was visiting to get the endorsement. He came off the road a few years ago after being on 15 years. He was an Escapee during that lifestyle.

 I have been trying to find someone in NY with a unit and license that could help me get the license. Unfortunately I only know one person and he is snowbirding in Fla. Not even sure if he still has his RV though. I would have thought the local CDL school could help but they said they could only do a class A or B CDL after I took that course for $3500. Yeah...nope.

I would hate to have to load up a storage unit. Move to domicile state. Then drive back just to load up. The whole Real ID act and the laws don’t make it easy to enter the full time life either. 

 I hadn’t thought about the tax implications until I read the replies here. 8% is a lot of money just to change states. 

Thanks again for the replies and look forward to hopefully figuring out a solution to this. I’m still learning as much as possible via these YouTube and now this forum.

Thank You!!!

 

[Dutch_12078]

To be clear, NY does not issue a Class 'R' license for 26K+ RV operation. What is required for personal use, is an 'R' endorsement on a standard Class D passenger vehicle license. I didn't take the road test for mine, but I've heard it's pretty simple. One option for your situation might be to use a rental truck or trailer to haul your stuff to your destination state, and then rent storage space there if needed.

[Kirk W]

You could join Escapees and then set up a domicile address before you buy the RV. Once that is taken care of, but the RV and register it in your chosen state and either store it there or at least do not keep in more than brief periods in NY while you get moved. You could then also bet your mail moved to the new address and use the mail service to get that. How long do you anticipate owning the RV before you leave NY?