Your domicile changes on the day you actually move and intend to stay, and not before.
What the Statute Requires
OCGA 19-2-1(b) provides that “[t]he domicile of a person sui juris may be changed by an actual change of residence with the avowed intention of remaining at the new residence. Declaration of an intention to change one’s domicile is ineffectual for that purpose until some act is done in execution of the intention.”
Two things are needed, and they have to happen together. As the Georgia Supreme Court put it in Bufford v. Bufford, 223 Ga. 133 (1967), “[i]t requires both act and intent to establish a residence, and either without the other is insufficient.”
An Example
Bufford involved a wife who left her husband in Wilkes County, took a job in Fulton County, and brought their son there to live with her. Witnesses testified she had said she came to Atlanta to live. The Georgia Supreme Court held that her act plus her intent established her residence in Fulton County before the divorce action was filed, even though her husband testified they had continued living together.
A Vague Plan to Return Someday Does Not Preserve the Old Domicile
Once you have moved and formed the intent to remain, a lingering wish to go back does not undo the change. In Campbell v. Campbell, 231 Ga. 214 (1973), the Court held that “if a person changes his domicile without any present intention of removing therefrom, it is none the less his domicile, although he may entertain a floating intention to return, or to move somewhere else at some future period.”
That is why the date you moved matters so much. It starts the six month clock under OCGA 19-5-2.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!