I'm trying to document the process I go through trying to get this stuff started in Maryland, since I don't usually see much about the east coast and I'd like to at least make sure that the next person who does a forum search for "Maryland domicile" has at least something to go based on.
For domicile, I started out by talking with the lawyer (based in Texas) that Escapees recommends. I was aware that I could retain his services and he would help me craft the illusion that I live in Texas. I'm sure he's good at his job and that he would have helped me do that and it would have been okay. But I wasn't comfortable with the degree of deception involved. My home base is Maryland. I don't want to pretend otherwise if I can avoid it.
What the lawyer told me was that everything would start with what address I put on my drivers license; and once I figured that out, everything else would fall into place. He recommended calling the DMV and asking what they wanted me to do. I did that. What the DMV said is that, essentially, I should just keep trying different mail forwarding services and maybe I would get lucky and find one that isn't listed as a business. They didn't have a process, other than that. What they told me was basically: if the web site will accept your change of address, you're good. If the address is bad, the web site won't even take it.
I decided to be smart about it. I figured out how to use the USPS address verification API, and I also subscribed to a third party address verification service, and I used both services to look up every Maryland address on ipostal1, as well as some smaller mom-and-pop places listed on yelp. I identified a few good candidates that really looked residential, according to all the data I was getting back from USPS and Xverify. But none of them worked on the change-of-address form.
The next thing I tried was homeless resources. I made quite a few phone calls. Every hotline I tried was very friendly and sympathetic but they had no idea where to send me. They kept bouncing me between different hotlines.
Eventually what I ended up doing was the "ask a friend if I can use their address" approach. The friend said yes. So that's what I'm going with for now. If I want to later I can revisit the homeless-resources option. I gave up for now because I was tired of being bounced from hotline to hotline. But maybe in a year or so I can try to get into a better domicile situation. The "ask a friend" approach will work for now.
For domicile, I started out by talking with the lawyer (based in Texas) that Escapees recommends. I was aware that I could retain his services and he would help me craft the illusion that I live in Texas. I'm sure he's good at his job and that he would have helped me do that and it would have been okay. But I wasn't comfortable with the degree of deception involved. My home base is Maryland. I don't want to pretend otherwise if I can avoid it.
What the lawyer told me was that everything would start with what address I put on my drivers license; and once I figured that out, everything else would fall into place. He recommended calling the DMV and asking what they wanted me to do. I did that. What the DMV said is that, essentially, I should just keep trying different mail forwarding services and maybe I would get lucky and find one that isn't listed as a business. They didn't have a process, other than that. What they told me was basically: if the web site will accept your change of address, you're good. If the address is bad, the web site won't even take it.
I decided to be smart about it. I figured out how to use the USPS address verification API, and I also subscribed to a third party address verification service, and I used both services to look up every Maryland address on ipostal1, as well as some smaller mom-and-pop places listed on yelp. I identified a few good candidates that really looked residential, according to all the data I was getting back from USPS and Xverify. But none of them worked on the change-of-address form.
The next thing I tried was homeless resources. I made quite a few phone calls. Every hotline I tried was very friendly and sympathetic but they had no idea where to send me. They kept bouncing me between different hotlines.
Eventually what I ended up doing was the "ask a friend if I can use their address" approach. The friend said yes. So that's what I'm going with for now. If I want to later I can revisit the homeless-resources option. I gave up for now because I was tired of being bounced from hotline to hotline. But maybe in a year or so I can try to get into a better domicile situation. The "ask a friend" approach will work for now.