More than 2,000 residents in Lowndes County have received tax bills on their mortgages since late November. The only problem? They aren’t supposed to be the ones paying the bill.
Home loan — mortgage — payments typically include principal and interest on the loan itself, plus payments toward insurance and property taxes. The portion of the payment made to property taxes is held in escrow either by the lender or a third party and paid to the tax assessor when due.
Andrews says the companies holding the property tax money in escrow typically request an amount due from his office prior to the time Andrews mails property tax bills. He says three out of 100 mortgage companies with borrowers in Lowndes County did not submit such a request, resulting in property tax bills being mailed to the homeowner instead of being serviced by the company holding the money in escrow.
In fact, Andrews was one such homeowner. He says his office has received more than 300 phone calls from others.
“What I recommend to people is if you have a mortgage on your property and you paid it through escrow, if you happen to have gotten the bill for this year, put your loan number on it, and forward it back to the mortgage company where you make your payments,” Andrews said.
Although the requests for bills were not submitted by the time the tax office sent out statements, Andrews said he expects the situation to have solved itself by the end of December, just one month before the property taxes are due on Feb. 1.
Andrews said the companies who have yet to submit those requests are Cadence Bank, Trustmark Bank and PennyMac, all of which have mortgage departments that handle monthly payments made by homeowners through escrow.
Those mortgage companies were reached for comment but did not respond to calls made by The Dispatch by press time.
Property owners who normally pay property tax directly to the tax assessor’s office should do that as usual.
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