Definition

Noun: 1. Domicile; Permanent Home: In law, the place a person considers their fixed, permanent, and principal home. It is the location to which they intend to return whenever absent. A person can have only one legal residence (domicile) at a time for legal purposes, such as taxation, voting, and jurisdiction.

Usage

The term "legal residence" is used in formal, legal, and administrative contexts to establish a person's official home for matters like voting rights, tax obligations, jury duty, and eligibility for certain benefits or in-state tuition. - It is distinct from a temporary residence or a place where one merely lives. - Establishing a legal residence often requires both physical presence and the intent to make that place one's permanent home.

Examples

• Noun:
  • To register to vote, you must provide proof of your legal residence in this county.
  • His legal residence remained in Florida, even though he spent summers in New York.
  • The court determined the defendant's legal residence for the purpose of filing the lawsuit.

Advanced Usage

• "Establish legal residence": To take the formal steps to make a new location one's official domicile.
  • She needed to get a driver's license and register to vote to establish legal residence in the new state.
• "Change of legal residence": The formal process of moving one's domicile from one jurisdiction to another.
  • Filing a change of address with the postal service is not sufficient for a change of legal residence.

Variants and Related Words

• Domicile (noun): A formal synonym for "legal residence," often used in legal documents.
  • The will was probated in the state of her domicile.
• Resident (noun): A person who lives in a particular place. A "legal resident" is one whose legal residence is established there.
  • He became a legal resident of California after living there for six months with the intent to stay.

Synonyms

• Domicile: Permanent legal home.
• Permanent home: Primary and intended long-term dwelling.

Related Phrases

• Principal establishment: Another term emphasizing it is the main, not secondary, home.
• Place of abode: A more general term for where one lives, which may or may not be one's legal residence.

Noun

1. (law) the residence where you have your permanent home or principal establishment and to where, whenever you are absent, you intend to return; every person is compelled to have one and only one domicile at a time
   • what's his legal residence?