Our house is new construction, and we were warned by the sales guy for the builder about interim taxes.  We were also expecting to get billed for the interim taxes *after* we got the money back from our escrow analysis for this year (expected April/May).  It didn’t quite go down like that.

Mortgage companies don’t pay for interim taxes.  Since we have new construction, and the property hadn’t been assessed at the time the tax bills went out, we paid taxes on the unimproved land amount (about $200).  But, we own improved land with a house on it, and the county comes by to re-assess the property once the deeds are filed and they get off their asses to do so.  We had gotten the 2016 assessment back in September, and know what we’ll be expected to pay (more or less) next year.

On Thursday, I got a letter letting me know that the county assessed our house in 2015 for interim tax purposes (at more than our 2016 estimate?).  On Friday, I got three bills from the local tax collector: one for 2014 school taxes (2 months worth since they’re on a fiscal year of July-June), one for 2015 school taxes, and one for 2015 borough taxes, totaling about $8.5k. Not having that money easily accessible and deciding to borrow from our line of credit (again) to cover us until we got the expected escrow analysis in April, I moved money into our checking account and wrote the checks (yes, they had to be three separate checks).  I had until January 19, 2016, but I figured I’d rather take the tax deduction this year rather than next.  So, I put the checks together, put them in an envelope to mail off this morning (Monday).

Monday mail arrives, with the escrow analysis and a check for $6.1k.  Now, we only have to cover just over 2k in taxes, which we expect with Dad’s annual bonus in a few weeks.  It’s not that I *like* coming up with 2k out of the blue, but we were kind of expecting this to occur, just not as quickly as it has.  That $6.1k will be deposited tomorrow once we both sign it, and then it will be transferred back to the line of credit so we’re not borrowing quite as much.

There’s still quite a large escrow balance with our mortgage company, and we’re probably going to “owe” them next year for escrow (about $300-$400), but it was nice getting that check now instead of in April/May when it would have been a year since we got our mortgage.  I wonder if the analysis will continue to occur in November or the very large balance in the escrow account triggered the analysis, or if it’ll begin occurring April/May like I was expecting.