 If you're thinking of hitting the road full-time, you might have some legal questions. So today, I'm back with Steve Lado from Lado's Law, and he's going to answer some of the most common questions I get on full-time RV life. Hey, Steve, how are you doing? Doing very well. It's good to be here again. I have some questions for you that my viewers want to know all the time about living full-time in an RV. So this is going to be a quick one. But let's talk about overnight parking at like a Walmart or a Cabela's or something like that. If Walmart has private property for their parking lot, why is it that local ordinances can prevent people from parking there? Well, you know, here's the thing. The local ordinances are the law. And I'm not saying they're right, but a local municipality has the ability to say, we are going to forbid overnight parking or things of that nature. And their argument would be, you know, if this parking lot turns into a campground, it would be a different use than what that property is zoned for. So I suspect in most states, the municipalities are allowed to do that. It's just a question of, you know, whether it's going to be enforced or not, you know? Gotcha. Okay. And similar question. A lot of people that have RVs or schoolies or something like that, dream about maybe getting a little piece of land somewhere, maybe buying four acres, 20 acres, and just parking their rig on it part of the year or full time. And then they find out that the local ordinances don't allow them to do that. Even if you have a hundred acre property in some places, you can't put an RV that you bought on a property that you bought. Why is that in some places? Well, again, the local municipalities, whether it's an actual town or village or township or whatever, has the right to regulate, you know, what we consider a domicile, a building that you live in. And most areas actually have building codes and zoning ordinances to say, if you're going to be living into this building, it's got to have the following things. They often have things about, you know, bathrooms and running water and also square footage. And quite often, I suspect that many trailers don't hit those requirements. And so they're going to say that letting you live in an RV, doesn't matter if your piece of property is, letting you live in your RV on your piece of property would be in violation of the zoning ordinance that says your house must be a certain size or whatever. And again, whether it's right or wrong, it's the law. So, you know, you want to just do the research in advance and find out if that law exists someplace. Cause I mean, some people obviously have this idea and they find the ideal piece of property and it looks great, but you can't see the building codes unless you do the research. So you got to find out what the building codes say and whether you're allowed to do that. And if you are great, if you're not, then the property is not as attractive as it should be. Right. It's the same kind of thing that people with tiny houses run into. Yes, yes. They have to come in trouble with that. Yeah, and it's one of those, most people don't stop to think about it because if you grew up in America, you probably grew up in a house that met zoning requirements. And you're so used to being around things that it would shock you if I said, oh, by the way, this house over here is only this many square feet and it has no bathrooms. You'd be like, what? So I understand that RVs might have all the things that a house has, but I suspect most of them would run into trouble with respect to the square footage and things of that nature. Right. You know, that makes me think of another one. If you get a piece of property and you're able to be on it, but the road up to your property is on an easement. What do you run into there? What happens if somebody doesn't want to let you use that road anymore? You have to find out what the easement is and what it allows because easements are very, very tricky business. If you have a piece of property that's landlocked, for instance, the only way you can get to it is by crossing someone else's property, but you have an easement that says you can cross the property. Then you can probably drive vehicles over it. You'd probably drive a trailer over it, but then the question becomes, are you dragging anything else over there or not? But you can usually find this stuff out in advance again before you buy the property, figure this stuff out. Okay, great. So now I'm gonna get to the juicy stuff. If you live full-time in an RV and it's your house and you're going over state lines and stuff, what if you have a gun and what if you have some weed? What happens if you cross the state lines with stuff in your car? And here's the thing. Many people view their RV like it's their home. They go, this is my house and they get the mindset like, my home is my castle, it just happens to be on wheels, right? But you've gotta remember that when you cross state lines, you're entering another state, you're in the jurisdiction of another state. And you might find that there's some state that's extremely tolerant of marijuana usage. And you might find there's a state right across the state line that is extremely intolerant, still thinks that reefer madness was a documentary. In which case, you need to know that before you cross state lines because once you're over there, technically speaking, you could be breaking the law. And your argument can't be, well, I wasn't breaking the law in the other state, you're not in the other state anymore, now you're in this state. And so that problem is going to occur with marijuana, drugs, but also guns. And I get asked this all the time, especially many states, there is literally a patchwork, a quilt of 50 different sets of state laws regarding guns, hand guns, carry permits, long guns, everything. And most states have got so much regulation in place that the next state over is completely different. And they don't necessarily even recognize each other so that if you have a permit to carry a particular kind of gun in one state, crossing the state line, you might be in violation of that law. Now, I know people who say, Steve, that's wrong. I'm not here to debate morality with you. I'm somebody telling you the law. And I've heard of many occasions where someone gets stopped at the border or near the border or they cross the border. And they're like, but I came from a state where this is legal. It's like, yeah, but you're not there anymore. That's the problem. So you need to do some research. The good news is with the internet, you can research this stuff really easily and find out what the laws are in which state. You know, if you're in Michigan, you can pass over into Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and very quickly into Illinois, five or six states you can get to very quickly from Michigan. It might change how you wanna travel to figure out which states are more friendly to whatever it is that you're doing. Right. Let's say you're going over a state border crossing, which we happen, it happens to us a lot in our Vs. Like you're going from California to Arizona or New Mexico to Arizona, usually Arizona, and there's a border crossing and they wanna search inside the rig itself. Do you have to let them do that? Let's say a drug dog alerted. You probably do, but. Here's the problem. The police who often interact with those on the highways, whether it's in a car, on a motorcycle or in an RV will quite often ask you or try to cajole you into giving them permission. Would you mind if I looked in your RV? And as an attorney, I suggest to people that you very, very politely decline that. And if they say, oh, why are you declining that? Just say, you know something I talked to an attorney once, he told me, I probably should. What can I tell ya? And now if they want to try to come up with some reason that they think they're entitled to search, they might search. And then the question becomes what they find, whether what they find can be used against you in the court and you may have to litigate that, which is not pretty. But the problem you have is, for instance, like let's suppose they pull you over and it's a canine unit and you say, I don't want to let you search. Cop walks the dog around the truck, the RV, and he goes, hey, my dog alerted, my dog thinks there's something in your RV. Well, that'll probably get them in to do a search. And then of course, when they find nothing in the RV, then the dog looks stupid and I feel sorry for the dog. But it's unfortunate because when they search something, they don't just walk through and look. They're often digging through stuff. It's very, very intrusive. But my advice is to not consent and listen very carefully. Because if they ask you, would you mind if I looked? They're trying to get your permission. And they know that most people out of politeness will say, sure, go ahead, I've got nothing to hide. And the next thing you know, they're in your medicine cabinet going, do you have a prescription for these? Do you have a prescription? It's like, oh, so I'd prefer not to, you know? People that travel need to have the same legal documents as other people. Maybe a will, a living will, power of attorney, something like that. Where should we keep those documents? Should we keep it with us? Or what's a safe place to store those things? And what do you think people should have? You know, that's an interesting question because the concern I have with putting stuff in your RV and taking it with you is I understand that the RVs are relatively secure, but they're not as secure as like your home would be. And so I would suggest, I mean, there's certain documents you've got to carry on you. Your driver's license, the registration of the vehicle, proof of insurance probably is a good idea. But as far as like documents like your will and things of that nature, I would consider leaving them with someone you trust very, very much like, I don't know if you have an attorney possibly, attorneys often hold on to documents for people. You might want to get a safe deposit box, perhaps, and just make sure you make the payments on it. Or if you've got someone you trust, a relative, a parent, or a brother, or a sister, or somebody, you know, I've held things for, you know, relatives of mine, but they also know I'm an attorney. So I, you know, I hang onto documents for people and I can keep them secure. And you know, if anything ever happens to me, this is where the stuff is, you know? So, but that's something people should think about because, you know, I know where all my important documents are, but, you know, I have a house, you know? So I'd be a little concerned about putting them in the cabinet when the cabinet falls off the wall and you got to take it back for warranty work. Right? And some people have a little space and stuff, but you know, there could be a fire, there could be an accident, you never know. Okay, well, give me advice. Thank you so much, Steve. Thank you. This is gonna be super helpful for my people. Again, everybody, check out Steve Lado here on YouTube and on the internet. He's got some great books too. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Anytime, thanks. All right, everybody have happy travels and be free.