Investor · Saint Augustine, FL · Member since 2015 · 227 posts · 61 votes
To me that is real money...if we pay property taxes early in November we save money ...then a little less in December ...January etc...till you are paying the full amount with no savings in March ...not sure why anyone would wait...the savings for paying early are way more than you get on a CD or bank account....
Really a guy who works at the tax collectors office told me some mortgage companies use the highest tax payment ( March) for escrow and then pay early ( November) and pocket the difference...
Really a guy who works at the tax collectors office told me some mortgage companies use the highest tax payment ( March) for escrow and then pay early ( November) and pocket the difference...
Escrow accounts are audited to the nth degree. No way a bank could do this. (I hope)
Really a guy who works at the tax collectors office told me some mortgage companies use the highest tax payment ( March) for escrow and then pay early ( November) and pocket the difference...
This is probably partially true....they probably base your 1/12 escrow charge per month on the highest amount then pay the lower. However they audit escrow accounts annually and refund any balance above a certain total (I believe it's 13 or 14 months total escrow allowed). The slight extra they are allowed to hold is to cover annual tax and insurance increases that they can't effectively predict and budget until that year's payments go out which is too late to collect them.
Like someone else mentioned though the escrow balances are ALWAYS yours, and it is federally regulated. Failure to follow those guidelines would land them in trouble with the government. Also if you ever look at your monthly statement for payment you'll notice the escrow balance is separately calculated, this is so you can actually be sure of what is being applied and when.