A mortgage question

A year or so ago, the bank tells me they've miscalculated the escrow, or something or other (God, I hate math and contractual shit), so they're upping my mortgage payment by a couple of hundred dollars a month. It was something to do with property taxes.

Now they've sent me a check for a couple of thousand dollars because I overpaid my escrow.

The bank is Chase, so it's not some fly-by-night outfit. But is this normal?

 

It's not unusual. They guess every year on how much taxes and insurance will be and always on the high side.

Then if they get more of your money in reserve than the government allows, they give some back. Then kick up your monthly fees again.

 

Just happened to us too. But our mortgage didn't go up by a couple of hundred dollars. That strikes me as unusual, unless your interest rate floats or something.

 

No, it's a fixed rate.

I guess it has to do with the assessment of the value of the house -- the county keeps increasing it as much as they can, so the various government entities can bravely refuse to raise the property-tax rate and yet still get more tax revenue.

 

Chase just did that to me - I had a negative escrow balance, so I have to pay a couple hundred backs a month for the next year to make it up. So apparently, it's normal for them.

 

Certainly it's normal to have your escrow change from year to year as your taxes and insurance change. But a couple of thousand seems a bit unusual. Sounds as though you might give this a little extra attention when that time of the year rolls around.

 

My bank sends me an escrow statement every year, showing all the activity from the escrow account, what they're projecting the taxes to be, how much they want to keep in reserve (usually $200-$300) and what the new amount will be for the coming year. In the last seven years its never changed by more than $5-$10 a month.