South Dakota Domicile - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Vstarrider1946 · RV-Dreams Family Member

South Dakota Domicile

SnowGypsy · RV-Dreams Family Member

Did your wife have a driver's license from another state with her married name on it? We have been in a few states and never encountered that and never really thought about it as a possibility. As I told my husband when we were renewing our son's state ID this year, "It always takes 3 trips before we can satisfy them with documents as here they need a utility bill to show you are current and with our son they need a government document with the current address even without an address change taking place. All of this gets more difficult as the world goes paperless. The thing is, all of this could be verified in 2 minutes on the computer right there at the DMV. Now, if they were a private business with competition, they might excel in customer service at that point but with a monopoly.....

LibertyLinda · RV-Dreams Family Member

I knew to bring our marriage license because our mail forwarding service had it listed as one of the items to bring for ID. I admit, I had to re-read all of the ID requirements several times to be sure I had them all - and by a miracle we did! Sorry you have to go thru that Dave & Meg - and especially sorry you got caught in the earliest snow fall for Rapid City!

Trikester · RV-Dreams Family Member

A year ago we had no trouble. Here's a relevant page from the America's Mailbox site in Box Elder, SD:

www.americas-mailbox.com/home/tips/drivers-license

I note the following on this page:

*If the name on your current driver's license does not match your name on these other documents, you must present either a Marriage Certificate, Divorce Order or some other Approved (CERTIFIED) Court Order (or a series of them) to prove the name you want on your SD driver's license.

This did not apply for us. So, no problem here. But I can imagine its being a royal pain for some other folks.

-- Edited by Trikester on Friday 12th of September 2014 10:39:45 AM

Ric and Rebecca · RV-Dreams Community Member

Hi all, we just returned from South Dakota to change our domicle. Like stated before I changed my license and walked out with my new license that day. For women they must have paperwork showing each (if you have been married more than once)name change. Example: registered birth certificate with maiden name, marriage license with maiden name to first married name, next registered marriage certificate with first married name to second married name and so on. The State gives the woman a paper temp license with your current drivers license back(for picture I.D.) the temp license for my wife is good for six months. have to gather the documents that you need and send them back to the drivers license office and they will send you the new license. They take your picture when you get your temp license so when they get all the new documents they can mail it out to you. Folks at My dakota Address were great to work with. ric

RVKevi · RV-Dreams Family Member

Our mail service also told us what we would need, as did the SD DMV site. Because of the new federal requirements, any name changes must be documented with marriage license or court documents. Even if your current license from another state has your married name on it, you still need the marriage license. I'm not sure, but it is possible that you don't need it if using a passport as proof or identity, but definitely, if not using a passport, the marriage license is a necessity. Since we did our research and knew what we'd need, I had it well in advance.

Vi

Dave Buck · RV-Dreams Family Member

I don't remember for sure but when we got our license I think we used our passports and our license in our previous state. In about 15 min or less we were done and on our way.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

RVKevi wrote:
Our mail service also told us what we would need, as did the SD DMV site. Because of the new federal requirements, any name changes must be documented with marriage license or court documents. Even if your current license from another state has your married name on it, you still need the marriage license. I'm not sure, but it is possible that you don't need it if using a passport as proof or identity, but definitely, if not using a passport, the marriage license is a necessity. Since we did our research and knew what we'd need, I had it well in advance.

Vi

I don't think this is a federal requirement. Jo and I just moved to Colorado this summer and a couple of weeks ago, we went and registered our vehicles in Colorado and got our Colorado driver's licenses. There was absolutely no requirement for a marriage certificate. They took our information and accepted our Oklahoma driver's licenses as identification. After issuing the license, they "punched" our Oklahoma driver's licenses with the word "VOID."

Terry

RVKevi · RV-Dreams Family Member

Terry and Jo wrote:
RVKevi wrote:
Our mail service also told us what we would need, as did the SD DMV site. Because of the new federal requirements, any name changes must be documented with marriage license or court documents. Even if your current license from another state has your married name on it, you still need the marriage license. I'm not sure, but it is possible that you don't need it if using a passport as proof or identity, but definitely, if not using a passport, the marriage license is a necessity. Since we did our research and knew what we'd need, I had it well in advance.

Vi

I don't think this is a federal requirement. Jo and I just moved to Colorado this summer and a couple of weeks ago, we went and registered our vehicles in Colorado and got our Colorado driver's licenses. There was absolutely no requirement for a marriage certificate. They took our information and accepted our Oklahoma driver's licenses as identification. After issuing the license, they "punched" our Oklahoma driver's licenses with the word "VOID."
Terry

It has to do with something called "federally compliant licenses." I think that not all states have complied with it yet, but in those states that have, the identification rules are more stringent. We recently changed our domicile to FL, and had to use the same documentation here. Take a look at your driver's license. I've been told that the federally compliant ones have a symbol - a star in a circle. Certainly both my SD and my FL licenses had/have it. If yours doesn't, it may mean that it isn't federally compliant and that is why you didn't need the extra documentation.

-- Edited by RVKevi on Saturday 13th of September 2014 07:19:34 PM

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Our licenses both have a gold star in the upper right hand corner. One source that I found online said this:

"REAL ID Gold Star on Colorado Driver’s License

The Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) announced that all Colorado driver’s licenses and identification cards issued after July 1, 2013 will have a gold star in the upper right hand corner.

The gold star helps to verify the authenticity of the cards by federal agencies when the ID is used for an “official purpose“.

“Official purpose”, as defined by the Secretary of Homeland Security, includes presenting a state issued driver’s license or ID card for boarding federally regulated commercial airline flights and entering restricted and semi-restricted federal buildings and nuclear power plants."

In one document for Colorado, there was absolutely no reference for needing a marriage certificate or divorce decrees. I read at one place that a majority of the states have either passed resolutions or have pending resolutions for not complying with the Real ID Act, and calling on the federal government to repeal the Real ID Act.

I guess if we ever decide to really start traveling, South Dakota may not be a choice, even though Jo has never been married to anyone but me.

Terry

Jack Mayer · RV-Dreams Family Member

Assuming you have the regular passport that seems to be all you need and it eliminates all the other "stuff". We used that and a DL to get the DL reissued without any issues at all. In TX.

SnowGypsy · RV-Dreams Family Member

It might be good to just take back my maiden name as I intended to do that but haven't gotten it done. I found this article since I am curious about it and will want to express an opinion on it to my congress people: www.dmv.org/articles/the-real-id-act-are-you-ready-for-a-national-id/ No gold start on the KS license and I wasn't surprised but for all the shortcomings of KS that I see, politically they do represent my stands on the issues. We may remain residents/domicile here despite the taxing us to near death issues. I loathe paperwork and am willing to do almost anything to avoid the DMV.

Gary and Linda · RV-Dreams Family Member

Hi everyone. Question I didn't see here in regards to drivers licenses. Do you have to take a test written or otherwise?? We're going to use SD as our domicile.

gilljr · RV-Dreams Family Member

Just got mine, no test, just a form to fill out.

RonandBee · RV-Dreams Family Member

My wife have lived all over this country and have had a driver's license in several different states. We never had an issue until we moved to Nevada, then we had the marriage certificate issue arise because of the name change with my wife. We plan on changing domiciles to SD also and it's good to know that we need to show the marriage certificate again.