CHANGING ADDRESS ON YOUR DRIVERS LICENSE

New York Vehicle and Traffic Law § 505 (5) provides:

"Change of address.  It shall be the duty of every licensee to notify the commissioner in writing of any change of residence of such licensee within ten days after such change occurs and to make a notation of such change of residence on such license in the place provided by the commissioner."

Failure to comply has consequences in a civil action. When a process server attempts to make personal delivery and then relies upon substituted service, this is usually done by delivering the summons to a person of suitable age and discretion at the address which was on file at the State of New York Department of Motor Vehicles, and then mailing the summons to defendant at that same address. Now here is a real situation in which I consulted with the defendant. The defendant never changed the address on the drivers license, did not live at the address for several years, and only learned of the action after a default judgment was issued.

TARDUNGO v. ARIAN, 2016 NY Slip Op 50706 - NY: Appellate Term, 2nd Dept. 2016:

"In this action to recover rent arrears, defendant appeals from an order of the Civil Court which denied her motion to vacate a default judgment that had been entered against her in the principal sum of $7,700. Upon a review of the record, we find that the Civil Court did not improvidently exercise its discretion in denying defendant's motion. Since service was made upon a person of suitable age and discretion at the address which was on file for defendant at the State of New York Department of Motor Vehicles, and the summons was mailed to defendant at that same address (see CPLR 308 [2]), defendant was estopped from challenging personal jurisdiction on the ground that she was served at the wrong address (see Kandov v Gondal, 11 AD3d 516 [2004]; Burke v Zorba Diner, 213 AD2d 577 [1995]). Moreover, defendant's moving papers failed to demonstrate that she had a meritorious defense to the action (see CPLR 5015 [a] [1]; Eugene Di Lorenzo, Inc. v A.C. Dutton Lbr. Co., 67 NY2d 138, 141 [1986])."