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HrlyKrs · Mar 16, 2008, 12:42 PM

My wife and I both live and work in NYC. We are considering our options to buy a home. Our first option is to buy a condo/co-op in NYC.

Our current rent is really cheap (against other NYC apartments). One option that I'm toying with is to keep renting our place in NYC, and buying a home in NJ (about 60 miles outside of NYC. We would sleep in the NYC apartment from Monday night to Thursday night. We would have NJ driver's licenses, our mail would go to the home in NJ, we'd be registered to vote in NJ. Basically, the NYC apartment would just be a place to sleep 4 nights a week.

Can we claim the home in NJ as our primary residence? Does this scenario have any other implications that we need to consider?

Thanks!

ebaines · Mar 16, 2008, 04:37 PM

Sounds like you would be spending over 200 nights/year in NYC, and consequently NYC would insist that you are NYC residents (despite the fact that you might have NJ driver's licenses).

The best way to establish NJ residency is to spend more than 183 nights/year there. I suggest you find a home in NJ that is a relatively easy commute to your jobs.

HrlyKrs · Mar 16, 2008, 05:28 PM

Thanks, ebaines!

Where do the magic numbers (200 & 183) come from? Is it just cause 183 is more than 50% of the year?

60 miles would put us about 1.5 hours commute from NYC. Perfectly doable on an occasional basis. How do we prove we are spending more than 183 nights/year in our NJ residence?

ebaines · Mar 17, 2008, 07:23 AM

NY State considers anyone spending 184 nights in NY as a NY resident. I suppose that's there way of saying > 50% of the year.

If you spent 4 nights a week in NY, times 50 weeks/year = 200 nights in NY (assuming 2 weeks off on vacation).

It may be difficult to "prove" that you spent less than 184 nihgts in NYC. At the very least you should keep a deailed log that you could use to show that you carefully tracked all this.

One other thought - assuming you don't have significant other income - say from investments - all this is to simply allow you to avoid the NYC resident tax, right? After all the taxes you will owe NY State is roughly the same regardless of whether you live in NJ or NY. So perhaps you'd do better to find an apartment that's an easy commute to work but not in NYC itself? That way you clearly wouldn't have to pay NYC resident tax.