UTMC

An escrow account is most commonly used to guarantee funds in a large transfer, buying a home or large ticket item, or as a trust established by a mortgage company to pay property taxes and insurance.

Without knowing more about the situation and why you think it's a rip off I can't really say more on the topic.

/RM

roadmissile wrote: to pay property taxes and insurance.

That be the one. Turns out they're collecting more then they need, and interest is not an option. Fuckers.

-Rench

check with the state licensing/regulatory agency...that may not be legal.

a little more than they need, or a lot ?

Yeah, I don't really understand how they can collect more than they need. An escrow account isn't an account you can make money off of, when I sell a casket/cemetery property in MD at least that money has to go into an escrow account and we can't touch it, until it's used...

Escrow account should balance out to $0 = sum of 12 payments minus Annual property tax and Annual insurance.

Once I changed insurance companies and the bill was $400 less a year so they sent me the check for the difference once the insurance got renewed.

Er, yeah ... what's making you think its a total rip off? Escrow is essentially a holding account ... the only conceivable "rip off" i can think of is that you are paying into it monthly and not earning interest on that money even though the payments that are made from it (generally property taxes and hazard insurance) are paid either annually or bi-annually ... but honestly, you aren't losing out on much in the way of interest earnings, and you GAIN the time and reduced stress of not having to worry about making sure you have the money to pay property taxes and hazard insurance!

Escrow payments typically go up every year, in response to increasing property taxes ... when you look at your escrow account, it might *seem* as if its holding a lot more money in it that it needs to have to cover your mortgage payments, but that excess will be paid out to property taxes and hazard insurance.

As MATPOC said, it should essentially be a total in/total out annual cycle. My escrow payments inevitably work out to be about $100 short for the year, which they then amortize over the next year's increased payment amount.

I'm seeing the opposite. Escrow overestimated, but at the end of the year, they refunded any overage. This should continue as long as our property value continues to diminish.

yay

since its tax time i have the info close to hand, and my mortgage co pays interest on the escrow.

very very little, mind you, but they still pay something.