I was at the bank last week, and not surprisingly, the teller asked me for identification. As I passed my driver’s license to her, I noticed that the address on my license is out of date. How many other important records have my old address I wonder?
I didn’t move, but my address changed. I used to have one of those “RR” rural postal delivery addresses, and about a year ago our township upgraded to the 20th century and gave us an actual street name and address.
Long ago I changed my address on the car registrations, the mortgage, and the bills, but I never thought of my government records. It’s even easy for a government employee to forget this kind of stuff.
So this week I begin again. But what address records do I need to update and how do I do it? The bad news is that I’m going to have to contact each agency individually to update my records. The good news is that you can find all the government address change contact information you’ll ever need on USA.gov.
It looks like I only have to contact a few agencies. Obviously I need to update my driver’s license with my state Department of Motor Vehicles, and the Social Security Administration. The Social Security Administration lets you change your address online, and I like that. I better check my voter registration records too, because they may be out of date as well.
Don’t forget to update your records if you change your name as well. It’s important to keep your government records up to date. It’s common for a government agency to send some sort of refund check, and the agency has an old address, and the money never finds you. That’s just sad. If you’ve ever been slow to update your address with the government, be sure to check and see if any agency is holding unclaimed money for you.