Once again property tax time.

Ours are due 1/2 on May 15th and 1/2 on October 15th. Paid online and took 30 seconds.

I do the escrow thing. I set it up years ago when I first single and trying to sort a budget that worked, and now the bank tells me that I can't stop it.

I don't know how set in stone that is, but I don't have the energy right now to fight the bank about it. The bank always seems to win anyway.

Because I don't want my money restricted and unavailable if I really needed (or wanted) it.

Because we would rather have a lower monthly payment.

I've had mortgages with  more than a dozen banks over the years and I've never had one that gave me the option to escrow or not.  

The only time I have been able to stop an escrow was by refinancing or setting up the original mortgage without escrowing.

I can give you a few reasons.  But first I will say that if someone is not very disciplined in saving their own money for their taxes and insurance, they should absolutely escrow.  

I no longer have a mortgage but when I did, I didn't escrow.  When I got my first mortgage when I was 26, I did escrow.  No choice.  I didn't have enough equity and I also don't think I realized you didn't have to escrow.  I was a single mom without a ton of extra money laying around but I did have an emergency fund.  The first full year of my mortgage, my mortgage company didn't pay my taxes until January.  I was counting on them being paid in December for tax purposes.  Because of their screw up, I had to come up with an extra $1,000 or so in taxes that year.  That was a chunk of money out of my emergency fund but thank goodness I had it.  The following year, it all came out in the wash because I got to take both year's property tax in one year but it still stung for a single mom.  

Another reason...........once I got to the point of not being able to itemize taxes every year, I wanted to control when my taxes were paid because I bunch deductions.  Our taxes are due by Dec. 31st but are not considered late until after Jan. 31st.  This allows you to pa taxes in one year or the next.  For example, for 2014, DH and I will take standard deduction on our federal taxes.  I will pay my 2014 property taxes in Jan. 2015. I will pay my 2015 property taxes in Dec. 2015.  I will then take both year's property taxes on my 2015 tax return and will itemize.  So, it saves me money in federal taxes to not escrow.  I no longer have a mortgage so it is a non-issue but when I did and when the amount of interest I was paying was much lower, this helped.  

Also, when I had a mortgage, I hated the way they calculated my escrow.  They did it the only way they probably could do it but I still didn't like it.  It was always calculated based on the prior year's property taxes and the prior year's insurance.  So, pretty much every year, insurance would go up a little so there was a shortfall when it came time to pay and same with property taxes.  There was almost always a shortfall due to increase in the property tax rate or increase in the value of the house or both.  The new mortgage now has to figure in the amount of the shortfall plus add on that shortfall amount for the next year so the mortgage was always getting changed more than I liked. I had started sending extra to my escrow account once I saw that I would be short due to valuation but for me, it was easier to just be in complete control of it.  

I've never been required to escrow because we funded a certain level of equity on the purchase of our house.

We have a VA loan so we are required to escrow. It's fine with me! One more thing I don't have to worry about!

I like this option...win-win for both parties!!

Why I don't have escrow on this mortgage:
I bought this home when my first husband and I divorced. At my job at that time, I was not quite full-time, and I really wanted my house payment to be as low as possible. I knew that come tax time, I would either use my Christmas Club account to pay taxes, or knew that if I was going to be pinched for money, my parents would loan me the tax money and I could pay them back. Thankfully, the Christmas Club money always covered it.
I just did not know what life had planned for me during those first few years of being on my own.

This is me. There would have been a few years there where there is no way I would have been able to come up with property tax money. By it being taking from me by the bank in my mortgage payment I don't even know it's gone and it becomes one less worry. The overage checks are great too. I have gotten an overage check for 3 out of the 6 years I have had my mortgage and they are anywhere from $200-$600. I probably won't get them anymore since my bank always adjusts my payment to try to eliminate them and that is ok too. It was fun while it lasted.

Thanks for the reminder. We got the forwarded bill from our previous house but nothing for our new house. Urg I wonder if I need to call someone - obviously I don't want them to be late - I can't remember when they are due here as they keep changing it earlier and earlier.

I was wondering the same thing. Our whole mortgage payment with escrow for taxes and insurance isn't much more than $600 a month.