MORTGAGING YOUR FUTURE
Click here to return to the recent columns.
I’ve got to get a better understanding of my finances.
I thought I had a fairly good grasp – bills come, I write checks, bills go out, bank account goes dangerously low.
But then my mortgage company decided I had graduated into the advanced class and completely changed the rules. I received my mortgage statement in the mail, which is the single most depressing piece of mail I receive each month because:
But over the first two years of owning my own home, I had at least gotten into the routine of signing away all of my hard earned money. Then I got the new piece of literature. It read, "Since we, the mortgage company, actually own the house, we have decided to have a pool party there next weekend. If you do not have a pool, please have one installed immediately."
OK, so they didn’t say that. Actually, there was no letter at all, just a little, tiny change on my statement. That little, tiny change amounted to an increase in my monthly bill of over 30%, which ain’t exactly chump change.
Before calling a black market organ broker, I called the mortgage company and asked them why my payments had jumped so dramatically. "Well, Mr. Gibbons, it seems your city and county taxes tripled this year."
Now, call me crazy, but I’m just guessing that had all city and council taxes TRIPLED, there may have been one or two upset people, and there may have been one or two city or county offices stormed by angry taxpayers, fueled up on carpet fibers.
I made a quick call to the organ broker (just to set up an initial appointment, just in case), and then called the tax office. It then occurred to me it was 7:00 in the evening, and government workers had been home for roughly seven hours at this point, so I decided to wait until morning.
When I called in the morning, I spoke to a very nice woman who explained to me that my taxes had gone up, but only because my house had been appraised at 6% rather than 4%! I was classified as a nonresident legal! Silly me! How would I not realize that?
OK, anyone who understands that better be in the mortgage business, or else there is something really, really wrong with you.
Basically, what I got out of it, was that, when I bought my house, I never filled out some form or told some person or put some big sign in my front yard or something saying that I was living there, rather than renting the house out. The wheels of government spin rather slowly, as it took two years for this to be reflected on my mortgage statement.
The folks at the local tax office got a letter together to send to my mortgage company that would straighten out the whole mess. The letter had lots of numbers on it, some percentage signs, and the symbol for Sagittarius. No idea what that last part was.
I sent the letter off to my mortgage company with a letter from me that read, "Please reassess taxes for 1999 based on new estimates provided herein." I have no idea what I told them. I could have told them to double my mortgage payment, for all I knew.
A few weeks later, I got a statement in the mail from my mortgage company. I opened it up and stared at the amount. Much better. Slightly more than last year but, according to everyone on the planet, "Oh, that’s standard." You can charge every person on the planet a little more each month if you just say, "Oh, that’s standard" when they question it.
A few weeks later, I received a check in the mail from the city for an "escrow adjustment." No idea what it was, but it sure did buy me a nice new lawnmower!
So, I think my finances are back to as normal as they can be. Hopefully, I will only have to deal with minor increases in my bills from year to year. I’m fine with those, however, because that’s standard.