# USPS Address Verification on a private road



## JRHill02 (Jun 20, 2020)

We've owned our property for 15 years and lived here for 12. The roads (logging trails, 4wd year around) are on private land with easements for land owner passage. There are no services and no utilities, no USPS/UPS/FedEx, nada. And many locked gates. Many years ago after we purchased I went to the county assessor's office and they assigned a physical address. The county has a GIS system and most of these remote roads are not part of the USPS Address Verification system because they don't care - there is no local mail delivery. These roads have quaint names and some of them aren't on the county's GIS mapping system. Even Google Maps doesn't know of some of these roads that are primary access and used regularly. GASP!

All was fine until a bridge construction project closed our access to the highway and to our POBox in the closest town. So we changed our POBox to a larger station on a different route that actually had regular business hours. All good as we went by that place on the way to town anyway. Then it began to happen when I tried to change our mailing address. I have to to show up to a state office in person to verify our physical address but they are closed due to covid. Calls and conversations, letters, on and on, still I can't get them to change the physical address. They say they will but don't.

Has anyone else gone through this? It's not just the State but many other vendors use the USPS Address Verification system. The bank. Insurers. The Fed. Hospitals and other providers.

The local post mistress is absolutely no help....


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## JRHill02 (Jun 20, 2020)

JRHill02 said:


> We've owned our property for 15 years and lived here for 12. The roads (logging trails, 4wd year around) are on private land with easements for land owner passage. There are no services and no utilities, no USPS/UPS/FedEx, nada. And many locked gates. Many years ago after we purchased I went to the county assessor's office and they assigned a physical address. The county has a GIS system and most of these remote roads are not part of the USPS Address Verification system because they don't care - there is no local mail delivery. These roads have quaint names and some of them aren't on the county's GIS mapping system. Even Google Maps doesn't know of some of these roads that are primary access and used regularly. GASP!
> 
> All was fine until a bridge construction project closed our access to the highway and to our POBox in the closest town. So we changed our POBox to a larger station on a different route that actually had regular business hours. All good as we went by that place on the way to town anyway. Then it began to happen when I tried to change our mailing address. I have to to show up to a state office in person to verify our physical address but they are closed due to covid. Calls and conversations, letters, on and on, still I can't get them to change the physical address. They say they will but don't.
> 
> ...


Oops.


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## doc- (Jun 26, 2015)

I wish I could get away from Big Brother Google....It's not Monsanto that's the Evil One.


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## JRHill02 (Jun 20, 2020)

doc- said:


> I wish I could get away from Big Brother Google....It's not Monsanto that's the Evil One.


If someone shows up at the gate they are in a personal emergency or they are trouble waiting to happen. Three Catahoula dogs - they don't come through the gate. But its not all good. For EMS, etc., ya have to be part of the local system if needed. One works carefully and doesn't get hurt.


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## po boy (Jul 12, 2010)

I had to do this a few years ago and had to go through 911 services (do not call 911) and they provided a mailing address. You will need to get the property id from the county or your tax bill. if you need longitude and latitude, your cell phone should do that.


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## JRHill02 (Jun 20, 2020)

po boy said:


> I had to do this a few years ago and had to go through 911 services (do not call 911) and they provided a mailing address. You will need to get the property id from the county or your tax bill. if you need longitude and latitude, your cell phone should do that.


I don't have any problem with county stuff. Parcels, the forest plan, etc. It's the state and fed and some things as mentioned above.


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## 50ShadesOfDirt (Nov 11, 2018)

We have an address on the nearest county road, which is still a mile away from our property; that's the official address given out by our county, and it was just assigned to that county road, and it is what's listed in the USPS database. Everyone (ups, fedex, etc.) "just knows" to drive the extra mile to get to our home. Kind of a "turn right at the fallen-down tin barn on the side of the county road, and keep going for another mile" situation ...

I'd keep the "street address" they assigned you long ago, even if it isn't nearby, _as it is the one assigned to an official road in the county system_. It's the official number and street for you (based on the nearest official county road), even if it won't show up on a google map correctly (yet). So, assuming no problem with that official number, it sounds like you're having trouble with the assigned POB, and you want to change it to another POB ... we had no luck changing away from our assigned POB location, so no advice here. However, when the USPS refused to deliver "business" mail to our "private" address (a local post-mistress in charge), we had to go over her head to the Denver regional postmaster, who said that's ridiculous, and over-ruled her. So, go to the next-up postmaster from the one you are dealing with ... see if that helps your situation.

Finally, you can actually change (or correct) what you see in Google maps, as all these map services have a "correcting" function; it's not easy to find on each service, but it _is_ there. So, if Google maps isn't showing your GPS location on a real road (even if only logging trail or 4wd) that you know is there, you switch to satellite view, take a screen capture, and send it to them, and eventually someone corrects it for you. Took us about 2 - 3 months to get ours corrected. Google originally showed the road "petering out" long before it got to our "starred" GPS location, but when you switch to satellite view, you see the road leading right to our house, along with our house! So we sent all that in, and they fixed it ...


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## JRHill02 (Jun 20, 2020)

50ShadesOfDirt said:


> So, assuming no problem with that official number, it sounds like you're having trouble with the assigned POB, and you want to change it to another POB ... we had no luck changing away from our assigned POB location, so no advice here.


Ah yes, you are correct. I miss-stated that point. Our physical address as assigned does not need to be changed. It just needs to be recognized by the USPS Address Verification system. Changing the PO Box is the PITB at issue as more and more agencies and companies use the USPS system for verification. We had investigated a mail box along the rural carrier's route. But the place the USPS Postal Nazi insisted it be placed was highly insecure and often blocked and she wouldn't budge so we abandoned the thought.

As for Google Maps, heh heh, I have NO desire to correct the map. As a matter it would only cause frustration as there are multiple locked gates along the road(s). Over time I have picked up many pieces of vehicle skirts, bumpers, etc. One day I will fasten that stuff to a tree at the turn off instead of another sign (wink).


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## Nimrod (Jun 8, 2010)

To get to my 40 you have to go a half mile up a minimum maintenance road (not plowed in winter nor graded often) then hang a right and go another half mile up a logging road. At least the minimum maintenance road has a name. I got a fire number from the county installed the sign at the beginning of the logging road. Since I was practically living there in the summer I contacted the USPS and installed a mail box at the beginning of the minimum maintenance road with XXXX minimum maintenance road as my address. Had my mail forwarded to it so I got my bills without having to go home and could pay them on time. Luckily I got someone at the post office that was familiar with the area and knew exactly where the address was and where I put the mailbox.

Last summer I wanted to put a package delivery box next to the mailbox because I am ordering many items off the internet and FEDX and UPS can't deliver to my property and can't put the item in the mailbox. The road is a township road and the township board turned down my request to put up a box because the neighbor complained. He would not be able to see the box from his house but raised a ruckus because he said it would be unsightly. As far as I am concerned this ain't over yet. 

The neighbor also wanted me to remove my mailbox but that's federal and he can't do a thing about it. I am going to make my mailbox as big as possible and paint it the ugliest colors I can think of. The regs for a mailbox state maximum size, distance from another mailbox, and height above the road surface. They don't say anything about color or design.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Nimrod said:


> The road is a township road and the township board turned down my request to put up a box because the neighbor complained. He would not be able to see the box from his house but raised a ruckus because he said it would be unsightly. As far as I am concerned this ain't over yet.
> 
> The neighbor also wanted me to remove my mailbox but that's federal and he can't do a thing about it. I am going to make my mailbox as big as possible and paint it the ugliest colors I can think of. The regs for a mailbox state maximum size, distance from another mailbox, and height above the road surface. They don't say anything about color or design.


Your neighbor is a jerk. Whatever you do, don't use the florescent spray paint. It fades to white in a couple years. My line posts used to be a lovely blaze orange but are now white.


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## JRHill02 (Jun 20, 2020)

I hope I have made some headway on this issue. Multiple sources/links say that the 'local' post office can initiate the addition to the USPS Address Verification API. The entry will be flagged as undeliverable but the address will be verified. If your post office is a small town place they will refer to to the office that has the local overseeing manager. I hope that person is in a good mood when I go in with my paperwork. Wish me well on this, please.

Again, why is this important? It has nothing to do with delivery of anything - that won't happen. But it does matter for things like a driver's license, plated vehicle/trailer registrations, DishTV, HughesNet, Starlink (real soon now we hope), etc. Anything that needs proof of location but doesn't have to show up physically. It's gotten that somethings are crazy if you are not listed in the database. And, no, the USPS doesn't show any location - they just report back to the address inquiry that it is a verified.

Frankly, I think all of this stuff started with the whole Homeland Security thingy and continues to formalize over time. And .gov and commercial entities realized the value of the USPS tool. So it you are caught it this cycle the sooner you fix it the better because it will probably only get worse.

Again to restate, everything was fine until we changed out PO Box. Nothing else. Then the SHTF. So I'm off to the PO with docs in hand. Heck, they know me well anyway.


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## Farmerjack41 (Jun 6, 2017)

In this county, you can only obtain a physical address after you apply for a residential building permit. Attempted to obtain one for my farm, no residence on the property. Was turned down flat. When I asked about getting one. The guy told me only he and God could issue one. Got his ass fired over that comment, but still no physical address. Finally gave up.


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## JRHill02 (Jun 20, 2020)

Farmerjack41 said:


> In this county, you can only obtain a physical address after you apply for a residential building permit. Attempted to obtain one for my farm, no residence on the property. Was turned down flat. When I asked about getting one. The guy told me only he and God could issue one. Got his ass fired over that comment, but still no physical address. Finally gave up.


That's both kind of funny and sad at the same time. Here permits are required for a water well or a septic. You won't get a well drilled without one.


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## JRHill02 (Jun 20, 2020)

I stopped in to the post office and fortunately the boss postmistress was at the front desk. I was armed with a print out of the county's mapping tool zoomed in on our location with the physical address referenced. I also had the original of this year's property tax statement. She only looked at the map and that was just a glance. I explained that the USPS Address Verification tool reports our address as invalid and this causes a myriad of problems for us. She insisted that she personally knew that our physical address is in the Address Verification database (doubtful she remembers but maybe, its a small town environment). She had no idea why our physical address is reported as invalid and used the time honored way to escape any action: Its a "system" problem.

Apparently a bunch of local post offices are being transitioned from the closest regional sorting facility to another 6x further away. Gee, that'll add a day or two to mailing something anywhere. Brilliant. So she is locked out of the system and can do nothing about it until this is finished and there is no timeline.

Great. The mailing address on our driver's licenses is wrong as it is on some licensed vehicles/trailers/equipment. A verified physical address is used for other critical stuff like insurance of all types, forest plans, satellite TV and internet, etc. Fortunately county gov't knows where we are so in the event we need emergency services that's not a problem if we can wait a day or so for a response. We could get some of this fixed by going to various county offices and proving our address in person. But they are all closed to the public over covid.

In the mean time we keep awaiting the event of being pulled over for expired plates or some crash and burn over missed mail that was returned as undeliverable.

Sigh.


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