pretty confused, need help with this

[Gabriel_S]

Hi all, and 1st of all a MERRY CHRISTMAS to all.

Well yet another dilemma. I just got a email from Country Wide stating that my property taxes were taken out from my escrow. As far as I know, looking at my documents, I don't have any moneys in my Escrow. Also my property taxes were included in the filing on Nov 24.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me. I checked my account and the taxes were indeed withdrawn. I paid my taxes seperate from my mortgage so I'm REALLY confused.

TIA and happy holidays
Gabriel

[TEW]

property taxes is not dischargable as far as i know. the mortgage company is going to pay the taxes out of escrow.

[Gabriel_S]

property taxes is not dischargable as far as i know. the mortgage company is going to pay the taxes out of escrow.

Ok I get that part but to my knowledge I don't have any moneys in my escrow. Am I missing something? This is what perplexes.

Thanks again and Merry Xmas
Gabriel

[StartingOver08]

Gabriel - yes this is normal. When you pay your taxes separately, you do not have funds in your escrow for the taxes naturally. However, when the bank sees that you are behind in payments they will advance the funds to pay your real estate tax and charge it to your escrow account. If you do not have an escrow account the bank will create one for you! BTW, the bank "sees" this through that tax service fee that you paid when the loan was closed originally. Every year the bank is notified if the taxes remain unpaid by a company that does nothing but check for deliquent tax bills.

The bank does this to protect their lien position on the property. If you are surrendering the house on a CH 7 - don't worry about it. The bank is going to end up with the property anyway.

[jgordo52]

Same thing for me on this. Do they have the right to charge me 400 for last years taxes that they are paying and then another 400, essentially raising my Mortgage 800 dollars for a year to pay for last years taxes and this years? 400 * 12 = 4800 my normal property taxes? How does that work?

[mgmadara]

Same thing for me on this. Do they have the right to charge me 400 for last years taxes that they are paying and then another 400, essentially raising my Mortgage 800 dollars for a year to pay for last years taxes and this years? 400 * 12 = 4800 my normal property taxes? How does that work?

We've had our taxes escrowed since day one and this is how it has always worked for us. The opposite is also true. If your property taxes decrease the overage in your escrow account will applied to the next tax year and your mortgage payment will go down. In the 10 years we've had our mortgage our payment has increased 8 times and decreased twice. If you have always paid your taxes outside of your mortgage, then I am not sure if they can/will charge you for next years taxes.

[StartingOver08]

If you pay your tax bill outside of escrow and you fail to pay the taxes, then the mortgage servicer typically advances the payment for the taxes in full for the year missed. AND they start that escrow account with the amount advanced, add in the current years projected tax bill, tack on a cushion (usually about 2 months) and then bill you accordingly.

If you are in a CH 7 surrendering your property, it is a moot point because you are giving back the property and it is on your petition as a surrender.

If you are in a CH 13 - it can create a problem if you did not include those funds in your budget the way the mortgage servicer calculates them. I can see where this would be a budget blower!