Electoral register - register at temporary home?

RoisinDove

Hi all,

I recently moved out of my rented flat and am now in a temporary situation for a few months while looking for a place to buy. I have no idea what to do about voting in the upcoming elections...I assume I'm still registered at my old place but never got a polling card there (I have a redirection set up but perhaps it didn't get redirected?) I'm a bit iffy about registering at the new address as I heard it can look bad to lenders if you change address often, and if I don't find anywhere to buy this year, that will mean 3 different addresses in a year. I've tried to call the local electoral office to find out but nobody is picking up.

What would be worse - not being registered at all or registering at a temp address? 

martindow

Can't advise of the wisdom of registering or not, but you don't need the card in order to vote.

Natbag

This is me, and I'm not changing it as two moves in a short time will kill my credit rating. So I've kept things at my address and put a Royal Mail redirection on my post just for a few weeks. 
You don't need your polling card to vote, you can just turn up at the polling station and give your name.

davidmcn

Have you had any other electoral communications redirected to you i.e. from the parties? If so, that indicates that you're still on the register.

Apodemus

Natbag said:

You don't need your polling card to vote, you can just turn up at the polling station and give your name.

...assuming that you are still registered there.  However, if there was no Poll Card, it is possible that the new owners have registered themselves at the address and that you have been taken off the register.  You might be able to resurrect your names at that address, but midnight tonight is the registration deadline, so phone the ERO again and hold for an answer - they will be very busy today as you will not be the only one who has left it until the last minute...

RoisinDove

Thanks all - I assume the new tenant has registered and taken me off the register. Is not being on it at all worse than me being registered at my new place? As someone else has mentioned, I am worried about my credit rating to have so many moves within a year. 

It's not a case of holding - they are literally not answering the phone. I wish I'd done it earlier but have had a very bad few weeks of hospital visits, stress and other issues and this is the last thing I need right now. I just don't know what to do about it for the best!

Section62

RoisinDove said:

Thanks all - I assume the new tenant has registered and taken me off the register. Is not being on it at all worse than me being registered at my new place?

Someone new registering wouldn't necessarily remove you automatically until the next annual review - they would need to inform the elections office you had moved out and the elections office would need to verify that information.

Some official election correspondence is not redirected to help prevent election fraud. A poll card shouldn't need to be redirected because you'd either be at that address to receive it, or if you are temporarily away you would probably have applied for a postal vote. Or at the very least a family member/flatmate living at that address would be able to contact you to say a poll card had arrived.

I won't comment on the legality or wisdom of your situation, but what it comes down to for you personally is maintaining your ability to vote vs potential impact on your credit rating.

There is no legal obligation to vote.

In the scale of electoral offences, it may be the case that voting in a place where you don't actually live is deemed to be a more serious matter than having not got round to changing your registered address yet.

RoisinDove

I'm only concerned about the credit rating, not about voting. I'm happy not to vote this time but am wondering if that means not being on the electoral register and that potentially impacting on my credit score. Or at least, it being a bigger impact than having to change my address several times in a year. 

pinkteapot

I'd register at the current address. If you're looking to buy you'll be there for at least a few months and probably considerably longer. When you apply for a mortgage you have to give an address history, and it has to match the electoral roll. It's just easier to be honest - saves keeping track of the false moving dates you're meant to give. It's only one additional move - if you were planning on staying in different AirBnB's weekly till you buy then it would be a different matter!

RoisinDove

I definitely won't be here past June/July unfortunately - I have to move out as it's a friend's place and they need it back. Then I'll be either buying or at a new rented place. This is the issue. That will mean at least 3 addresses in a year. So I thought the fact I'm 100% definitely not going to be here for more than another 2-2.5 months would mean it would be silly to register here?

I have moved around absolutely loads over the past 15 years, including abroad, so perhaps I'm going to have an issue here either way? I have tended to use my parents' address for all important correspondence like bank statements...otherwise I'd have been changing it every few months!

Section62

RoisinDove said:

I have moved around absolutely loads over the past 15 years, including abroad, so perhaps I'm going to have an issue here either way? I have tended to use my parents' address for all important correspondence like bank statements...otherwise I'd have been changing it every few months!

Having bank accounts with an addresses different to where you are living (and/or on the electoral register) may be more of an issue if that is still the case..

As part of the buying process you'll have anti-money laundering checks to go through. If your bank statements give a different address to those that other identity checks show then you might have to explain why they differ. In which case the fewer different addresses you have to explain the better.

I think pinkteapot makes a good point. Keeping it honest and simple is likely to be the easiest approach. The worst case scenario is a mortgage company looking at all the different information about you and suspecting some kind of application fraud.