Money Matters
Xstatic3333
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Wednesday MM Surprise!
H and I got a notice in the mail from our city the other day asking us to submit documents for the homestead exemption tax rate. We were kind of irritated, since we just bought our home in July and thought this had been taken care of. I called today to verify that we had to resubmit our form before we went to the trouble of getting it notarized, and found out from our Tax Assessor that we haven't been getting the exemption.
I'm pretty confused, because from my understanding of how homestead taxes work in my city I thought we were, but my math has been wrong plenty of times before. I also remember signing a paper at our closing verifying that we would live in our home. Overall I'm just excited that our housing payment, which was already very reasonable for us, may go down a bit. This will really allow us to rebuild our e-fund more quickly, which is a prerequisite to a baby and/or one last vacation, depending on our mood on any given day.
H was less excited than me, and wants to try to find a way to "get our money back" somehow from the last few months. I doubt that's possible, and I know this stuff is all city-specific so it's not likely anyone could help around here (though if there are any lurking RIers, come on down!). I feel silly for not noticing we were overpaying, but am just happy to look ahead to an improvement (realizing it could easily be washed away if our house is reevaluated at a higher value).
Anyone else get any good MM news lately?
Re: Wednesday MM Surprise!
That would be great! Also getting the money back would be wonderful but I wouldn't get my hopes up!
My mom told me this morning she would like to pay me upfront for working for her this summer so we don't have to worry about week to week pay unless I go over my regular hours. That's 2K on June 1st! It will go straight to the baby fund.
Love: March 2010 Marriage: July 2013 Debt Free: October 2014 TTC: May 2015
That's exciting! I like extra unexpected money!
So our condo inspection went well with no requests from the buyer at all! And the appraisal was fine as well! If all still goes well with the buyers finances, we will close June 5!!
Until then, I'm going to enjoy my cruise next week!
Hey Xstatic3333, while you are completely right about it depending on your city, the way it works in mine is you need to file at the assessor's office for a Homestead Exemption. I wouldn't think any kind of closing paperwork would do that. It definitely doesn't work that way here.
I'm actually impressed they even sent you anything. NOLA would never send a letter notifying people they may be entitled to pay LESS money. That would go against everything they stand for, lol.
Where I live, the status stays the same for each calendar year. For example, if you lived here, you wouldn't get a refund back for last year....since the year started as a non-HE...but you would (or I should say your bank) would be given a partial refund for what was over paid this year.
Your assessor's office can answer those questions. Also, I would be really surprised if the assessor's office reassesses the property just for an HE. Reassessments for areas are usually done all at one time for a specific zip code. For example, in my area, each zip code is assessed every four years. That's it. They don't reassess when homes sell or if the status changes.
The good news, it can be a pretty substantial savings. After I filed for my HE, my taxes went from $2000/year to $600/year.
Here is how the process almost always works from your bank's end. Assuming your tax's go down, you need to wait until the bank receives the new documents...outlining the new tax amount...from your city. You will then have to ask them to re-calculate your mortgage payment. You have to ASK for them to do it! They don't do it automatically. Weellll...eventually they automatically do it, but it wouldn't be until the beginning of next year when they reassess everyone's escrow accounts. After they re-calculate your mortgage payment, it may take 30-60 days to go into effect.
Speaking of escrow accounts, you also might end up with an overage in your escrow account. If so, when your bank reassesses your escrow account next year, they will send you a check. But that check won't come until probably Feb. or March of next year.
Of course, your bank could be different or slightly different, but most banks are usually on the same page with how they handle these situations. And I've been through it THREE times with mine. Once for property taxes (vastly in my favor), once for flood insurance (in my favor), and...just a couple months ago for my property insurance. Not in my favor at all
. But it wasn't unexpected. I was underinsured and fixed that last year...but for a much higher price, of course.