Mailing address vs. Resident address?

[maslex]

Can someone explain the difference (if there are any)? We got into a big ole discussion about this at work today and I just want to choke this one woman.


She's telling me that I don't live in the town that I live in. She's telling me that just because I get my mail from that town, doesn't mean I live there. ???? Over the years, I've had my mail sometimes addressed to two other small towns that are on either side of my town. She's telling me that I live in one of these towns, which isn't so. And these other two towns have a post office of their own, so I don't have a mailing address from either of these other towns.

Am I missing something?

 

[diznygirl]

I live in Celebration but the mailing address usually comes up as Kissimmee based on the zip code. Is that what she means?

 

[FireDancer]

I think you are talking about two different issues.

1. If I have a PO box where I send my mail that is my mailing address, the address of my physical house is my resident address. This can also be done for people who split their residence throughout the year but keep one as permanent for tax reasons. If I lived for 3 months in Florida and 9 in Ohio I may keep my residential address the Ohio address for tax reasons but have my mail go to the Florida address for those 3 months.

2. Zip code sharing. Some cities don't have their own zip code, they use someone else's. For example on of the cities close to me is Seven Hills, OH but they do not have their own zip code. They share 44131 with Independence so when you address a piece of mail to someone in Seven Hills you put Independence's zip code. That doesn't mean you live in Independence, you do live in Seven Hills, vote in their elections, pay taxes to them, etc.

 

[ncmickeyluvr]

I live in a small town that doesn't have mail delivery. The only people who have our town as a mailing address are people who have PO boxes at the post office. I have a mailing address from the city connecting our town because they deliver our routes.

Wouldn't you know what town you live in by who you pay your taxes to?

 

[maslex]

I think you are talking about two different issues.

1. If I have a PO box where I send my mail that is my mailing address, the address of my physical house is my resident address. This can also be done for people who split their residence throughout the year but keep one as permanent for tax reasons. If I lived for 3 months in Florida and 9 in Ohio I may keep my residential address the Ohio address for tax reasons but have my mail go to the Florida address for those 3 months.

2. Zip code sharing. Some cities don't have their own zip code, they use someone else's. For example on of the cities close to me is Seven Hills, OH but they do not have their own zip code. They share 44131 with Independence so when you address a piece of mail to someone in Seven Hills you put Independence's zip code. That doesn't mean you live in Independence, you do live in Seven Hills, vote in their elections, pay taxes to them, etc.

OK, I live in Plainfield. I don't have a PO Box. I have a regular mailbox at the end of my driveway and my mail comes from the Plainfield post office. I've lived here 20yrs and don't reside anywhere else during the year.
This is where it gets weird, I guess. My neighborhood (which consists of 4 streets) is basically in the middle of two smaller towns. Not sure how that happened, but it is what it is. LOL I guess since we're "sandwiched" in between these other two towns, people mistakenly take us for living in either Wauregan or Central Village (those are the other two towns) Each of these towns have their own zipcode and their own post office. Wauregan has both PO Boxes and regular mailboxes. Central Village on the other hand, just has PO Boxes and does NOT deliver mail. Like I said earlier, we have had people/companies write out our address as being in either Wauregan or Central Village. And when it comes to our house, I've noticed that it was crossed off and "Plainfield" was written instead. So I'm assuming that since my mailing addres is Plainfield and my residence is in Plainfield, that should mean that I live in Plainfield, right? She's telling me that since I pay my fire taxes in Wauregan, that's where I live. I'm sooooo confused. LOL

 

[merryweather20]

Where my Uncle lives the postal town lines are different than the voting lines.

His mail is addressed to one town, he votes and pays property taxes as if he lived in another.

In you situation I think the fire taxes, just refers to a situation with the fie taxes, you live in the other city.

 

[Fire14]

I live in a township with no grocery store, no post office etc. My mailing address is for village over where post office is located and is even in another county to boot. gets real fun going to DMV to reenew as it wants to put me in other county with higher taxes. In terms of voting I vote at our township hall but wouldn't be surprised if otyhers from village vote there also.

 

[SaraJayne]

My mailing address is not the town I live in.

The town I live in does not have a post office, so all of our mail comes from the nearby town.

So I have a mailing address and a physical address. Same house number and street name, but a different town.

If you I was giving you directions to my house, you'd get the physical address. If you were mailing me something, you'd get the mailing address.

Clear as mud?

 

[tefrench]

Fun topic!

We live in a rural area. While our mail has the name of the nearby town on it, we technically don't live within the physical borough. In fact, we live three miles out. We actually live very close to a little village (that still has a post office that I can see from my house), but since we live outside the "line", can't get our mail there. If we did, our mailing address should be a PO box there, not our physical address.

Anyhoo, when people ask where I live, I give the name of the little village since we are right beside it.

The kids have never understand although our mailing address is the town, we don't live there! It is all very existential!

 

[happygirl]

MY mailing address is a PO box

My home address is where I live

 

[disykat]

It just depends where the boundries are. I live in my town, and have this town's address, but have a phone number from the next town over. Many people in our area are closer to our town, say they are from our town, but have an address from the town on the other side. There are spots that EVERYONE considers part of our town, even though they have a different address because of the post office they are served by. Like you, we are three towns pretty close together.

I don't think SHE gets to decide which one you claim to live in, you do. In our area, we ignore the addresses and generally go by school district since there are three distinct districts, but they don't exactly match the town limits.

 

[maslex]

MY mailing address is a PO box

My home address is where I live

I guess that's my whole point. Both my mailing address and home address are the same. That's why I don't get what she's talking about. I understand some people have a mailing address while also having the address where they live. My sister has that in PA.

 

[happygirl]

I guess that's my whole point. Both my mailing address and home address are the same. That's why I don't get what she's talking about. I understand some people have a mailing address while also having the address where they live. My sister has that in PA.

My town doesn't have mail service jsut PO BOX

I can have Fed Ex deliver stuff to me at my home addresss

 

[LBIJim]

It's not at all unusual for mailing addresses to differ from actual municipality of residence. Postal boundaries are independent of city or county lines and often don't coincide.

OP, I'm not sure if fire taxes or school districts are the best way to determine where you actually live. Such divisions also don't necessarily coincide to an actual municipality, or they encompass more than one place. To whom do you pay property taxes? Or exactly what areas do your elected officials represent? That's probably the most accurate determination.

If you don't have any mayor or town council or something similar and instead elect officials at the county level, your "city" doesn't legally "exist." A fairly large percentage of the US consists of such unincorporated places. If that's the case, I suppose the post office designation is the best description as to where you "live."

Here on Long Beach Island, five of the six municipalities (with 95% of the population) share the same zip code. For reasons unknown, the most remote town has its own zip code.

Mailing addresses can influence property values. If you live on the wrong side of the town line but get your mail delivered from the right side, your house is worth more than it really should be. The reverse is true as well.

Jim

P.S. Even official govermental entities can have mailing addresses that differ than their physical location. If I wanted to write a letter to the mayor of Long Beach Township, I'd address it:

Mayor
Long Beach Township
6800 Long Beach Blvd.
Beach Haven, NJ 08008

(Beach Haven is a separate, independent town from LB Twsp.)

 

[arminnie]

I lived in University Park, Texas. University Park has it's own school district (shared with Highland Park), police, fire, etc.

But my mailing address was Dallas. I could not use the Dallas library as I was not a Dallas resident.

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

Can someone explain the difference (if there are any)? We got into a big ole discussion about this at work today and I just want to choke this one woman.


She's telling me that I don't live in the town that I live in. She's telling me that just because I get my mail from that town, doesn't mean I live there. ???? Over the years, I've had my mail sometimes addressed to two other small towns that are on either side of my town. She's telling me that I live in one of these towns, which isn't so. And these other two towns have a post office of their own, so I don't have a mailing address from either of these other towns.

Am I missing something?

Lots (or all?) towns in RI have villages. The village I live in has a post office, but that isn't the post office that delivers to our house. The post office for a village in the next town over delivers to our house.

It used to be a real PITA. For US mail (including packages) we needed to use the next town(village)/zip (our mailing address) to deliver to our house, and the UPS or FedEx had to have the actual town(village)/zip (our resident address) to deliver to our house.

Nowadays, we just use our mailing address for everything, because the US Post Office won't make the effort anymore to deliver to our house if the wrong zip is used (ie, if it's sent to our actual town/village PO, they won't send it to the PO in the next town to deliver it...they would just "return to sender") whereas UPS and FedEx make every effort to just make their delivery, and at this point, they've caught on to the discrepancy.

I've also had people, back when the kids were in elementary school raise an eyebrow and question me on why I was sending my kids to "Smithtown" if I actually lived in "Jonestown", since my mailing address said "Jonestown" as if I was trying to pull something over on the school system.

Our STREET on any address is the same "123 Smith Street".

When we first moved here, we actually paid a fire tax on my DH's motorcycle to a 3rd village, which turned out to be an error which we let go on for a while because it was something like $8 a year.

Just another annoying situation...to use the town beaches, you had to show your license at the gates. However, my license has my mailing address, which is not the town I live in. So every year, I'd have to get a letter from the town saying that I DO actually live in this town.

Last election, AFTER the election, my DD got a notice that she couldn't vote in our distract (AFTER she already had) because she didn't live in our district, and referred her to the district in the next town/village. Nice to know they have all that voting stuff under control.

THere will be a test on this at the end of the thread.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Mailing address, to me, is where someone wishes mail to go. If it's not your physical address, it's a P.O. Box.

 

[tvguy]

It's not at all unusual for mailing addresses to differ from actual municipality of residence. Postal boundaries are independent of city or county lines and often don't coincide.

Exactly. My wife's Aunt's Postal Address was St. Louis. Most of her mail came to "1234 Main Street, St. Louis, Missouri. The Phone company insisted it was Sappington and mailed the bill to 1234 Main Street, Sappinton, Missouri, same zip code, and the electic company said she lived in Affton, and mailed the bill to 1234 Main Street, Affton, Missouri, same zip code.

And I was involved in Little League, and they started a crackdown and wanted proof of residence in the form of 1 government ID from a parent/guardian and 2 utility bills. You know how many people have only a Post Office Box on their Driver's License, and Utilitiy bills now? And often,t here is an account number, but no service address on utility bills here due to privacy concerns.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

She's telling me that I don't live in the town that I live in. She's telling me that just because I get my mail from that town, doesn't mean I live there.

When it comes to local elections, do you vote for major or some kind of township or borough council? That will tell you where you live. My home address is Bethlehem, but I don't vote for the mayor of the city. I live in a township outside of the city, but my zip code is part of the city.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

I get 99% of my mail at a PO Box in Celebration, which is in Osceola County.

I physically live in Poinciana, which is Polk County. The problem is my street address mailbox is open to the street and anybody going by can access it.

All of my official Florida mail, such as Driver's License renewal, Car Registration renewal, Voting Card, and Property Tax information is sent to my PO Box by Polk County, even though Celebration is in a different County.

But my voting location is physically within Polk County, as that is where I reside.

Any time I do new business, such as with a doctor, when they ask for my address I will ask which address they want, but that all mail must go to my PO Box.