What address for non official Liveaboard marinas?

[Orange]

We are progressing our plans to sell our house & buy a boat to Liveaboard, initially in Scotland for a few years.

Scotland & the rest of the UK seem to have a small number of official liveaboard marinas. After contacting a number of marinas I have found that a proportion of them appear to be happy with liveaboards as such, but require a land based address.

A question I have is that if as a liveaboard you don't have an address, is there any other way to provide a proper address to the marina?

 

[maby]

Will they accept an accommodation address? A quick Bing search comes up with several companies that offer them.

 

[Orange]

Thanks for your reply.

I have raised some questions with one of the services. One query is that to use a mail forwarding service from this type of company, you must verify your address....!

 

[duncan99210]

This is a perennial question. The short answer is that most liveaboards either pay a company to provide a permanent shorebased address or they use the address of a friend or family member who is prepared to accept mail on their behalf. We use a family member as our 'firm base' address without any problems; equally my brother used a storage company to provide an address when they lived on board a narrowboat for a couple of years.

Lots of choice out there, including one or two companies who specialise in looking after yachties. There's at least one set up who will open your mail, scan the contents and forward it to you by email as well as sending on the mail to you every so many weeks when you can let them know where you'll be. This is the company http://www.boatmail.co.uk/ no connections etc, no idea how good their service is but they have been mentioned on here before.

 

[Bru]

Be aware that the requirement to have a land based address is often marina speak for being on the electoral roll at a land based address

As long as the marina accepts an accommodation address service, it's largely their problem not yours in so far as that goes (for them, it's a planning consent issue) although if the local authority clamp down on the marina over it you may find yourself without a mooring. And do bear in mind that when you're a sneaky liveaboard you have no security of tenure etc.

However, there's a bunch of other problems that can arise which may or may not be of concern to you ...

These arise because you cannot use your boat as your legal address in this situation. You cannot therefore register to vote at that "address" nor can you register for doctors, dentists etc. there. Banks and other financial institutions will be reluctant, and may well refuse, to accept an accommodation address (due to money laundering regulations)

If you don't have a land address you can call "home" (i.e. somewhere you could, at least in theory, rest your weary head) you will become, for many purposes, of no fixed abode

These things can all be got around one way or another but it can make life complicated and difficult. And often the difficulties arise when something goes unexpectedly awry such as illness which is just what you don't need

If there is any possible way you can arrange with a family member to be resident for legal purposes at their home address it makes life a whole lot easier (but be aware it can then cause them problems e.g. if they need to remortgage etc.)

I'm not saying don't do it but you need to be aware of and prepared for the pitfalls

(We have avoided the problem because we do have a land address where we can legitimately claim to live. It's actually No.1 Son's house but we're on all the paperwork etc. as being resident there)

 

[Orange]

Thank you for your information.

I have been in contact with a company called Expost who seem to provide the same sort of service discussed. However they all seem to need what you have defined as an electoral register address. In fact, Expost need me to have a real address in order to sign up with them.

As I need to be on the register to obtain a bank account, it looks as though I will need to buy or rent some sort of accommodation, which is disappointing.

 

[Bru]

As I need to be on the register to obtain a bank account, it looks as though I will need to buy or rent some sort of accommodation, which is disappointing.

One option I forgot to mention which I've known people use is to rent a room in an HMO (house of multiple occupation) in a really grotty area ('cos then it's relatively cheap) which can be done for as little as £25 per week, register on the electoral roll at that address and then have all mail to that address forwarded to a forwarding service etc.

Even at the lowest rates it's still a lot of money going out the door just to have an address but that, I'm afraid, is hard to avoid unless you're prepared to drop out of society altogether

 

[GHA]

First off, marinas - are you planning to stay in the same one for like a year or more? Usually if you look around you can get away with a summer here, a winter there no problem. Keep a low profile and paying up instantly goes down well.
Though doesn't help you that much, you still need somewhere for the banks and SSR registration etc to send things, I suspect most of us use relatives address. (ssr might get a bit twitchy if it's a mail forwarding service) Even with that I haven't been on any electoral roll or census for years.
Day to day things are much easier, so much can be done online now and amazon/eBay can be collected from post office /argos which helps tremendously if the marina that month doesn't like post coming in.
This doesn't help with a doctor either, I've found not getting sick works well with that

Sorry, not that helpful really...

 

[maby]

Thank you for your information.

I have been in contact with a company called Expost who seem to provide the same sort of service discussed. However they all seem to need what you have defined as an electoral register address. In fact, Expost need me to have a real address in order to sign up with them.

As I need to be on the register to obtain a bank account, it looks as though I will need to buy or rent some sort of accommodation, which is disappointing.

Don't discount the value of having a pied de terre to fall back on - some liveaboard friends of ours did some serious damage to their boat, requiring some significant work in the boatyard and found themselves couch surfing around friends.

 

[Bru]

On the SSR, if the boat is already registered and you keep up the registration you (probably) won't have a problem

However, they do (as I found out for myself) check the electoral roll on new registrations including change of ownership

 

[Robin]

We are progressing our plans to sell our house & buy a boat to Liveaboard, initially in Scotland for a few years.

Scotland & the rest of the UK seem to have a small number of official liveaboard marinas. After contacting a number of marinas I have found that a proportion of them appear to be happy with liveaboards as such, but require a land based address.

A question I have is that if as a liveaboard you don't have an address, is there any other way to provide a proper address to the marina?

I have recently set up Expat post. http://expatpost.uk/ they need you to provide a verifed address first but my USA one was accepted. We had (still have) a similar USA service. Both are excellent . I renewed our EHIC cards via the Expat address and my renewed drivers licence is in transit now too.Set it up whilst you still have a verifiable address with a utility bill or letter from your bank etc.I use the excellent 'scan and send' service and hold mail until I see a scan so only wanted mail gets sent. .

 

[Orange]

Thank you for your replies.

I will check carefully with the few official liveaboard marinas to check if they impact the electoral register. I think we really should need to register with a doctor etc. It looks to me that the marinas with accept unofficial liveaboards are going to be unsuitable.

 

[Tranona]

Thank you for your replies.

I will check carefully with the few official liveaboard marinas to check if they impact the electoral register. I think we really should need to register with a doctor etc. It looks to me that the marinas with accept unofficial liveaboards are going to be unsuitable.

You need to be careful about the word "official". It usually for a coastal marina just means that the marina will accept people living on boats moored there, not that it is equivalent to a land address for accessing services that require residency. Inland however there are many marinas that are officially residential with planning permission, paying council tax.

As you have seen it is possible to arrange your affairs to retain this access, but it usually means having a legitimate address you can call "home". The reality is that a boat is not a 100% replacement for conventional residence on land, so you either (as many do) just accept this and find ways round the obstacles.

 

[Orange]

Thanks, I will check carefully, but I think that the official liveaboard moorings I am considering, really are official. We need at least to be able to run bank accounts & have access to a doctor.

 

[srm]

Have a look at Boatmail.co.uk.
I have used their service for a number of official documents. John has also been helpful with some requests that were slightly out of his regular service.

 

[Orange]

Thanks, I will check their website.

 

[AndrewB]

Might be worth considering a GPO post box address. A while back I had one for several years while living in a marina that didn't officially allow liveaboards. However if you don't have a residential address they needed a work address for this purpose.

 

[colind3782]

Might be worth considering a GPO post box address. A while back I had one for several years while living in a marina that didn't officially allow liveaboards. However if you don't have a residential address they needed a work address for this purpose.

GPO? Now there's a blast from pre-1969!

 

[Orange]

I think one of the issues is being on the electoral roll - or not.

 

[Bru]

I think one of the issues is being on the electoral roll - or not.

That is, in fact, the core issue.

If you're not on the electoral roll somewhere (anywhere!) all sorts of things become a whole lot harder because practically every institution you deal with either directly or indirectly verifies your address on the electoral roll