Kirk W

This is exactly the way I read things. It happens a great deal in most legislative bodies. It looks like an easy, non-confrontational issue to use to get things to tell the voters that the legislator can claim to have accomplished. He then acts with no study at all. I am amazed at the way some members seem to take great pleasure in trying to find things to criticize about the "club."

You sure do "know" a lot of things which are not true. There is no such requirement and many an Escapee Texan has taken care of everything by spending 1 week or less in the state and then going on the road. Had you asked here, there is a booklet available free from Escapees that is titled How to Become a Real Texan that spells out just what is needed and demonstrates how it is one of the easiest states of all for the process.

Texas has no personal property tax on vehicles. They do however have real estate taxes that apply to improvements on rented or leased property such as a condo type community. The fixed RVs then might be deemed to be fixed improvements.

I doubt that has much to do with it. The date of the safety inspection and the issuance of license plates is typically only the same if the vehicle is still owned by the original purchaser. To use the vehicle currently sitting just outside of my door as an example. I bought it used in June of last year and so the license plates were also issued in June. The original month of sale was December and since the vehicle has never been without a current inspection, it is still due for renewal each December. So I really don't think that I have been gaming the system.

So call the office and ask. They are usually quite open about things they are considering.

Yes they have. As recently as about a year ago they did look at it and the revenue is just not there to justify it. It might happen at some point if an established service were to be for sale at a reasonable price.

Jim, you missed what I actually said. I said if you are in residence which means present in the state. I too have been out of state many times, renewing by mail or online when out of state in our 12 years. It is definitely a bad thing for those who travel, whether fulltimers or just travelers in an automobile. What I said was that this is probably what they were thinking and never considering what happens if those same people happen to be out of the state when registration is due.

While that is true, I highly doubt that there was any sort of conspiracy but that it was simply an oversight. If you happen to be a resident who is here most all of the time it would actually be more convenient than the current system with two stickers. We were in TX when the registration sticker came about and it was done to curb the stealing of date stickers on license plates that had become a problem. I didn't consider it the best answer back then and I still don't but if you were never gone at renewal time the combining of the stickers would be less of a hassle than the present system. On our current SUV the inspection is due in Dec. and the plates are not due until May which is a nuisance and there is the two stickers as well. The Polk Co. delegation is looking at it so I do expect that to get corrected and there is still a year to get it done.

And did you report it to the office? Esapees is not a large organization and they depend upon members to help. Some do so and others just complain, much as in every club or organization.

I have seen long term RV parks where current registration is required to stay there. I'm not sure how common that is, but I have seen it.

When I did some looking into that several years ago we made up about 20% of the registered voters, but the impact is far greater because we also happen to be the two precincts with the highest rate of registered voters actually voting. I think that the turn out rates brought our impact up to around 30% or so. Each election the Escapee's hold a "meet the candidates" nights and historically most candidates jump at the opportunity to attend. An interesting bit of history is that over time the voters of Escapees have changed the political climate in Polk county from one of the swing counties to one of pretty solid political lines. That change is what caused the court case that has verified the validity of the Escapee address for legal purposes in the state. What happened was that a candidate for County Commissioner chose to file suit to block the election results when he lost, based upon the thesis that he lost because of the votes of Escapee members who don't really reside in Polk county. That was back about 1998 and the suit tied up the voting rights for us for about four years until it went though appeals all of the way to the TX supreme court. As I remember, it was finally settled about 2002 or 03. It also resulted in the TX legislature making changes to the laws addressing voter registration, driver's licensing, vehicle registration, and several other laws to make it very clear that our addresses are legal. Those laws do not specify the Escapee mail service but spell out what a mail service must do to qualify as a legal address of domicile and were based upon the Escapee Mail Service model.

I think that it demonstrates the importance of the Escapee residents to the Polk county political scene and the importance of the RV community to the TX economy. Both of them are far more significant to the economy and to re-election in TX than they are at the federal level.

You are correct in that but know that Escapee's have worked with people and successfully gotten that problem resolved with a number of financial institutions and should you have the problem the business office is the first place to call. It could very well crop up again, but they have experience in dealing with this problem. The fact is that as many of us as there are we just are not a significant factor in the overall market place so are seldom considered when companies or government agencies make up new rules. That is one advantage to doing business in Livingston since everyone there seems to understand and want the business of fulltimers.

There is no need or reason to do that. Under TX law the address is quite legal for all functions and it was tested in the courts and upheld. Escapees is not the only such address that qualifies in TX but it is the only one tested through the courts.

Makes sense now.... Sailed right over my head.

Who told you that FL residents can't be members of Escapees? Some years ago there was an article on the subject of home states of Escapee members in their magazine and if I remember correctly there were no states that didn't have at least one or two members.......

Is this true for a private sale? I believe that it was true in the past for dealers, but we have two neighbors who have sold an RV in the past year and I know that neither of them had a current inspection sticker............. Another neighbor just bought a different fifth wheel and has his old one listed as well.

There are 10 possible locations listed in the TX-DOT website. That is a question that I have asked many times over the years and to date, I have never heard of one.

Thanks for the current info, Scott!

They are good until you return to the state. There is no specified time after return to get them renewed, it simply says "as soon are reasonably possible" or something similar.

With longer stays it becomes much more important that you be upfront about this. If it were me, I would contact the park you want to stay in before you get there and discuss it with them. Better to know before arrival. Most of the long term parks that we have stayed in also have no pet sections and pet sections so that those who don't like pets can have their areas too. As Earl says, they do want business, but just want to avoid problems with people's pet and between pet owners and other visitors. Very few of the park managers just dislike dogs.

I think that I'll take all of my money out and go buy gold to bury!

On has to define "still in" to some degree. I don't think that many of us have yet withdrawn to the point of keeping the money in cash in a box somewhere, but most probably are somewhere between fully invested and completely out. I have never been one to buy into gold and precious metals, but about a year ago we did take out a pretty significant chunk and move it from investments into real property. To us it seemed a good time for the move with real estate markets off and investments of most any kind not showing much growth. In the months since, our remaining funds have shown growth over all. We are a lot more conservative in our investments today, but we are by no means ready to take the "shoebox" approach.

So John, you didn't answer your own question......... Are you still in? If you can manage to read long enough I think you have been answered here..