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California State Residency After an Unplanned Return from Abroad

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  • 11-15-2010, 08:40 PM
    Caliris
    California State Residency After an Unplanned Return from Abroad
    Hello,

    I am an adult who was born and raised in California. When I was 25, back in 2004, I moved to Canada to marry my husband who is a Canadian citizen. I then applied for permanent residency while remaining there on visa. Complications with my case led to me remaining there for 6 years while enduring delays, misinformation and so on, culminating in my removal from Canada by exclusion order for one year.

    This occurred at the end of October this year. Now I am trying to apply for college in the US for Fall 2011, and the applications ask for my state of residence.

    In all the time I was in Canada, I still retained my parents' address in California as my permanent address, kept my bank account that was started in California, and kept a California drivers' license. I didn't file taxes (I usually let husband or father deal with that anyway) because I earned no income while in Canada and I had no accounts that earned interest.

    However, before I entered California on November 2, 2010, I had not been back to the state for four years. I visited there in 2006 for a friends' wedding, and after that, remained in Canada while my permanent residency processing continued, and ultimately failed.

    When I returned this month, though, the first thing I did was go straight to the California DMV to renew my drivers' license, which had expired a few months before. I was not denied a license--in fact, I currently have an interim one and am just waiting for the new card. On record, according to DMV when I called their help line, I've been renewed till 2015.

    So given all that info, is my state of residence still California? I have tried to read up a bit about how to determine residency in this document (the State of California Franchise Tax Board publication 1031):

    http://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2009/09_1031.pdf

    But I am still not confident in my state residency, due to the fact I was not on Californian soil for 4 years, and have only returned to my home state in the past month. On the other hand, I never actually succeeded in gaining Canadian permanent residency either, so if I'm neither a resident in a Canadian province nor a Californian resident, I'm a resident nowhere. That's confusing. :(

    In one of the college applications I'm filling out, it asks whether I have lived in California all my life, and if I have not I should declare my previous state and/or country residences. I am not sure how to answer that. I did physically "live" in Canada, but it was never my legal place of residence. I don't want to answer that I lived abroad until November and end up being counted as a non-resident of California, but on the other hand if I omit that fact I might risk being rejected for not providing all necessary information.

    So as you can see I'm quite stuck in a complicated situation. I hope there is someone here who can help me out with some advice.

    Thank you,
    C.
  • 11-16-2010, 06:42 AM
    LawResearcherMissy
    Re: California State Residency After an Unplanned Return from Abroad
    Given that you owned no property, paid no taxes, and only spent a couple days out of six years in California, no, I see no way for you to claim California residency. Maintaining your parents' address and your drivers license does not demonstrate sufficiently strong ties to the state of California.

    In order for you to claim California residency, your time abroad must have been demonstrably temporary and transitory. There's no way anyone can construe marrying a Canadian national, applying for Canadian permanent residency, and remaining on Canadian soil for six years as demonstrably temporary and transitory.

    In order to qualify for in-state tuition, you'll need to re-establish California residency. The University of California system explains how here. if you cannot document that you will be making California your permanent home - and this will be quite difficult if your husband remains in Canada - you will not be able to establish residency.

    Quote:

    In one of the college applications I'm filling out, it asks whether I have lived in California all my life, and if I have not I should declare my previous state and/or country residences. I am not sure how to answer that. I did physically "live" in Canada, but it was never my legal place of residence. I don't want to answer that I lived abroad until November and end up being counted as a non-resident of California, but on the other hand if I omit that fact I might risk being rejected for not providing all necessary information.
    You answer the question truthfully. You were, in fact, a resident of Canada for six years, just not a permanent one. Like it or not, you're going to be counted as a non-resident, there's no way around it.
  • 11-16-2010, 01:51 PM
    Bubba Jimmy
    Re: California State Residency After an Unplanned Return from Abroad
    Your domicile is the place where you intend to return permanently when all of your temporary travels have ended. You did not have any intention of returning to Californis during a period of several years. Therefore, California was not your domicile and therefore you were not a resident. Failing to cancel a drivers license is not sufficient to determine where your domicile is. Your intention is more important, and by your admission you only returned because your permanent residency was denied in Canada, not because your ultimate intention was to remain a resident of California.
  • 11-29-2010, 04:16 PM
    Caliris
    Re: California State Residency After an Unplanned Return from Abroad
    Thank you for the replies.

    What you say makes sense, but now I am curious as to where my current state of residence is. If I am not a resident of a Canadian province (because I was refused this), and I am not a resident of California, does that mean I have no residency anywhere?

    If that's the case then does that mean the only way I can gain residency is by staying long enough in a U.S. state (California in this case) to be counted as a resident?

    Thank you,
    C.
  • 11-30-2010, 03:46 AM
    llworking
    Re: California State Residency After an Unplanned Return from Abroad
    For the purpose of in-state tuition, and some other legal issues as well, yes, you have no current residency at this time. That doesn't mean that you are not a resident of California, it simply means that you are not a resident for some purposes.
  • 11-30-2010, 06:54 PM
    Bubba Jimmy
    Re: California State Residency After an Unplanned Return from Abroad
    Residency and legal residency are different. Your home has been in Canada, so my guess is that you established residency there at some point. When you begin to reside in a new place then you will be domiciled there, and will establish new resdency. As ll pointed out, you may need to meet some minimum period of residency for some purposes, but not for others.

    You have nothing to lose by discussing your situation with a representative of the school you are planning to attend. They should be intimately familiar with the specific rules for residency for determining tuition at their institution. You could get lucky.
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