Notice of Delinquent 2016 School Taxes

Submitted by CatholicAngst t3_z23d5x in pittsburgh

My husband and I purchased a home in Crafton PA in late 2015 and have an FHA mortgage with an escrow account. We received a notice of delinquent 2016 school taxes from Andrew’s & Price Attorneys at Law on 11/19/22 (dated 11/9/22, but postmarked 11/18/22). The amount due is close to $1000.00. They are threatening to place a tax lien on our property if the notice is not paid by 12/9/22.

We have received no prior notices or phone calls alerting us of a delinquency and it appears that our mortgage escrow account paid all amounts billed in 2016. I have sent a copy of the notice to my mortgage company and I tried to call the tax department at Andrew’s & Price, but was only able to leave a voicemail.

Has anyone else had this happen all of a sudden? How can I tell if this amount is actually owed and find out why we never received any previous notices over the last 6 years? Why the heck are school taxes so high in this area?

Our initial mortgage payment with P&I, MI, school taxes, property taxes and homeowner’s insurance was calculated at approximately $1200.00 when we purchased in late 2015, then increased to $1500.00 in 2016 and has increased yearly to the point where it is now nearly $1700.00 per month, which is never what we anticipated with a fixed rate mortgage.

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da_london_09 t1_ixei8rj wrote

Your mortgage company should simply pay it and then ask you to either make a one time payment to cover it, or spread that cost over the next 12 months. Every time we had an escrow shortage (usually due to the home insurance $$ going up, this is what they simply did for us).

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PirinTablets13 t1_ixemm0y wrote

Jordan Tax Services collects property taxes for Carlynton. I would start with them. See if they’ll call the lawyers off and if they’ll let you work out a payment plan.

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CatholicAngst OP t1_ixes5v4 wrote

Thanks for all the helpful replies. Not sure why so many downvotes. This is our first home and boy has it been a learning experience. Thanks again, neighbors.

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LostEnroute t1_ixebi6n wrote

Not helpful to your primary question. But, what caused the initial jump from $1200 to $1500?

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Pencilveinyah t1_ixec8wh wrote

Probably reassessed after sale.

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CatholicAngst OP t1_ixed2yx wrote

It was, but our escrow account paid the difference and we made up for it with increased mortgage payments.

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CatholicAngst OP t1_ixecug4 wrote

The mortgage company calculated taxes at a much lower rate than they actually ended up being. We moved from out of state and were not familiar with how property and school taxes would be calculated. We had no idea that the taxes would be more than our actual p&i amount.

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LostEnroute t1_ixef48q wrote

Sounds like your agent also dropped the ball. Sorry I don't have any more advice but the school taxes do look high for Carlynton.

Also, make sure you have the Homestead Exemption which knocks a decent chunk off the taxes and would need to be declared for a new owner. You can check it by looking up your home on the AC Real Estate portal.

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Vast-Support-1466 t1_ixgsemv wrote

*owners primary residence. That's obviously the case here, but nonetheless.

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snkeolr t1_ixerxdz wrote

I see you mentioned your mortgage went up after the reassessment. I would contact your mortgage company and tell them you received this letter. Since you have a mortgage I would assume they sent something to them to indicate the escrow account had a shortage or what. I would get a copy of each year showing the inscreased amount and see if it matches what they are claiming. Also, I would not ignore the letter and instead ask them for proof of the debt. How they came to that amount etc. it’s possible something got mixed up.

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Vast-Support-1466 t1_ixgthtd wrote

Realtor here. Go over here, look up your property, and see the assessment value (Market Value). http://www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/RealEstate/Search.aspx If you don't have documentation from the purchase showing the assessment value at that time, contact the Realtor that sold you the home to discover. It's late 2022, so we're approaching the 7 year holding deadline of torching data, which is upsetting on many levels.

MY guess is that you bought a $400-$450k home that was previously assessed around $100k. Or you bought a $250k that was assessed under $50k w less than 10% down. *I'm ignoring mortgage rates since you stated it was NOT an A.R.M.

Irrespective of my guess, you have research to do regarding Allegheny County property assessments during the last 7 years. It is a valid inquiry to determine that your property was NOT reassessed 18% higher than it should have been. The baseline used was 82% of sales price, and that percentage has been reduced in the last few months to 64%.

It's worth your time to investigate this further. https://www.publicsource.org/allegheny-county-property-tax-appeal-assessment-lawsuit-unbalanced/

Finally, I discovered a friends' property was current on recent years, but delinquent on one year 3 years earlier. Turned out their mortgage company hadn't received notification of re-assessment the year it was performed, or had and it was rejected by intake for whatever reason, and then the subsequent bills were processed properly. At any rate, he was delinquent, but it hadn't reached the profit/loss CBA of being handed off to collections. Sub 200k.

If you don't have the Homestead Exclusion (primary residence only, nationwide in the USA), apply for that as soon as possible.

https://www.alleghenycounty.us/real-estate/abatements-exemptions/act-50/act-50-faqs.aspx

https://www.alleghenycounty.us/real-estate/abatements-exemptions/act-50/act-50-application-process.aspx

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TheApprentice19 t1_ixhfmn7 wrote

The artificially inflated housing market is a scam perpetrated by mortgage issuers to bleed you dry just for living.

Not flashy enough for you……. @!’TA DA’!@

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Pencilveinyah t1_ixebtp6 wrote

I’m no expert on this but this but the government doesn’t usually send you reminders to pay your taxes. You have to be responsible for that yourself.

Your house was probably reassessed after the sale which caused the initial jump.

Once again I’m no expert but I believe they will contact your employer and garnish your wages for overdue tax bills as well.

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CatholicAngst OP t1_ixedkku wrote

We were notified of the reassessment and our escrow account paid the amount billed for the difference - I am at a loss for why they would not have notified us of any additional amounts owing and wait for nearly seven years.

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Pencilveinyah t1_ixee8oj wrote

When I was young I would always blow off my local taxes because I couldn’t file them online like my other taxes. I would usually get a letter from a collection agency about 3-4 years after and I would just pay it then. With a COVID slowdown of a year or two I could see this process dragging out even longer.

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Vast-Support-1466 t1_ixgsikq wrote

Glad you're not young anymore? and hope you're paying your taxes in a timely fashion these days.

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Pencilveinyah t1_ixhotbg wrote

Young people don’t always make the most prudent decisions.

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