Owner's Address

What's the importance of the owner's address stated on a title or a tax declaration? Should it be a permanent address? A temporary one? An office?

People tend to use different types of addresses: some put their permanent address (e.g., folks' home), some a temporary address (e.g., a unit they're renting, and some a postal address (e.g., their office). Some owners don't want to put their residential address for privacy purposes. So what's the proper one to use?

Why are these addresses important?

I never thought the address on such documents was important–until recently. I have a client who, after procuring a certified true copy of the title for a property she owned (agricultural land), discovered that the government had auctioned the same property for the non-payment of taxes. In other words, she no longer owns the property since the government has confiscated it.

Upon further research, the local government had sent numerous letters dating back to 2011 to warn her about it. The initial letters were to remind her to pay real property taxes, and the latter stating that the government had auctioned the property to a buyer.

So the address in the title is a means for the government to serve letters/notices relating to the same property.

Where is the address on titles and tax declaration from anyway?

The address on a title is the address stated by the Buyer in the Deed of Absolute Sale (DOAS). The Registry of Deeds (for the title) and City Assessor (for the tax declaration) manually copy these addresses from the DOAS, so check whether they copied these addresses precisely as written.

Changing/Updating the address on these documents is a tedious task any could take MONTHS. Changing the address stated on a tax declaration would require first changing the address on the title.

If you don't want the same problem happening to you, use a permanent address.