Property Tax Question

Your option is to work out a deal with your mortgage lender to allow you to forgo putting tax money in escrow. In that scenario, when the tax bill falls due, it is up to you to pay it. This obviously requires discipline on your part. Under what circumstances a mortgage lender will allow you to forgo escrow is something I do not know. Back in the day it had something to do with your financial "worthiness" and how much equity you had in the house. A call to your lender will sort that out for you.

I too am surprised your setup includes the bank giving you the check made payable to the Treasurer. Most mortgagors would require that check to go directly from the bank to the Treasurer.

Good luck.

I'm curious what others have to say but here is my understanding....

The bank is going to write the check to the treasurer because they want to ensure that the taxes are paid...hence the need for escrow. I'm actually surprised that your lender is giving you the check. Mine just sends it to the treasurer directly. And...with the housing market the way it is, I doubt the lender would forgo the escrow account (since I tried that and they said no.). I'm not sure if there is anything you can do. The only thing you may want to try is to get reassessed by your county assessor....that may lower your tax amount.

My mortgage company pays our taxes (and our homeowners insurance) directly. We see the bills (and can see that the mortgage company has paid the bills) but we never see the actual check that the mortgage company sends. I too am surprised that any mortgage company/bank would allow homeowners to get the money from escrow first and then pay. The whole reason there are the escrow accounts is to ensure that homeowners have enough money to pay these costs and that they are paid in a timely manner. I love that we don't have to worry about remembering to pay a bill that gets sent only once or twice a year.

Just to add, since ALL of our home values went down, our property taxes SHOULD have gone down too, but if you don't ask it won't happen. Call your city or county and demand they reevaluate your property value and your taxes will go down. We bought out home 2 years ago for $180, all my neighbors are selling their houses for $140, so when I got the tax bill, it says on there my house is worth $180, so I called and now my taxes are way less, but they wanted to give me a hard time about it at first!