Orange County Property Tax Installment Plan - WHY?

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IrvineCitizen_IHB

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Did you know that you can get into an installment plan with the Orange County Tax Collector? If you have delinquent property taxes from a prior year you can do the 5-year installment plan. Basically you pay 20% of the delinquent value each year for five years until it is paid off. You still accrue 1.5% monthly interest fees on the outstanding balance.

My question is why would you do this? Say you owe 5K in back taxes from 2007. You could pay $1000 now and then $1000 plus interest each year for the next four years. I think I figured it out though - the OC Tax Collector web page said there are 900 installment plans being used right now and most are by mortgage companies to avoid a property sale due to delinquent property taxes. I guess after five years of delinquency the county can take the house! So these people that have defaulted and don't pay property taxes could stick the mortgage companies with a property sale due to the delinquent taxes.

I'm fascinated by all this and way out of my league in understanding it all. I just think it's weird that you can pay your property taxes over a five-year period.

Anybody have an opinion on it?
 
Wow...thanks for that tidbit..I hadn't seen that earlier thread and found it enlightening...what a nightmare if they actually enforced that! Or maybe it would be GREAT....
 
IrvineCitizen said:
Did you know that you can get into an installment plan with the Orange County Tax Collector? If you have delinquent property taxes from a prior year you can do the 5-year installment plan. Basically you pay 20% of the delinquent value each year for five years until it is paid off. You still accrue 1.5% monthly interest fees on the outstanding balance.

My question is why would you do this? Say you owe 5K in back taxes from 2007. You could pay $1000 now and then $1000 plus interest each year for the next four years. I think I figured it out though - the OC Tax Collector web page said there are 900 installment plans being used right now and most are by mortgage companies to avoid a property sale due to delinquent property taxes. I guess after five years of delinquency the county can take the house! So these people that have defaulted and don't pay property taxes could stick the mortgage companies with a property sale due to the delinquent taxes.

I'm fascinated by all this and way out of my league in understanding it all. I just think it's weird that you can pay your property taxes over a five-year period.

Anybody have an opinion on it?
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It is a stall tactic by homeowners to buy time and save money until the homeowner short sells or forecloses. And for the banks to stall until they sell it again. The taxes will get paid up to date once the property is sold irregardless. I don't think Mello Roos Bond administrators would foreclose because eventually they will get their money anyhow and if they did foreclose they would be liable for the county tax, HOA payments and have to start paying a company to clean and sell the home they just foreclosed on which would put them in the property management business and i am sure they do not have the money or time deal with that headache.

Here is disturbing link that is happening across the country of banks not taking the homes back and cities bulldozing sections of their cities and no longer providing services in that area. Bleak times.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/03/banks-walk-away-on-foreclosures.html
 
It is a stall tactic by homeowners to buy time and save money until the homeowner short sells or forecloses. And for the banks to stall until they sell it again.



I don't get it. If it's the homeowner that is doing this why not just NOT pay the taxes? If you owe $6K in back taxes why pay $1200 for this first installment? If you just flat out don't pay anything nothing can happen to you for five years. The county can't take your house unless you are five years past due.

I have a neighbor that just did this. They are current on 2008 property taxes but have a delinquent 2007 tax bill of somewhere around $6K. They just set up the installment plan and paid $1200 for this year. I doubt they are paying their mortgage or HOA fees but seems to me that they could have saved $1200 and just not paid anything. And why keep this year's taxes current at all? Seems like if they are going to walk they would pocket that $12K as well.

That's why I think it's a mortgage company that is doing this and not the homeowner. I would LOVE to know who owns this house cause I think they're squatting!
 
Oh I'm really starting to see how this all works now!

My neighbor has a two year old Land Cruiser and a three year old beautiful Lexus luxury car. They also have a new Jeep for the fun of it.

They also have the lovely property tax installment plan and an abstract judgement from Toyota Motor Company on their house. Funny what you can learn from a quick free Internet search of public records!

So these folks drive around in their luxury Lexus living in their wonderful big Irvine house and have not a penny to their name! Maybe tough it out another six months before the Sheriff shows up at the door and kicks them out. Default on the house. Default on the HELOC. Keep the TLC and Lexus and why not keep the Jeep for their 20-year old daughter too.

I also notice they have a Declaration of Homestead and a Quit Claim Deed on the house as well.

How long can they keep this fraud up????????????

And they are one of thousands in Orange County.....
 
IrvineCitizen said:
Oh I'm really starting to see how this all works now!

My neighbor has a two year old Land Cruiser and a three year old beautiful Lexus luxury car. They also have a new Jeep for the fun of it.

They also have the lovely property tax installment plan and an abstract judgement from Toyota Motor Company on their house. Funny what you can learn from a quick free Internet search of public records!

So these folks drive around in their luxury Lexus living in their wonderful big Irvine house and have not a penny to their name! Maybe tough it out another six months before the Sheriff shows up at the door and kicks them out. Default on the house. Default on the HELOC. Keep the TLC and Lexus and why not keep the Jeep for their 20-year old daughter too.

I also notice they have a Declaration of Homestead and a Quit Claim Deed on the house as well.

How long can they keep this fraud up????????????

And they are one of thousands in Orange County.....
Click to expand...

There are thousands that will keep doing this till the Sheriff shows up. I think a lot of people are doing this as they have no real choice. After the crappy banks turned off all their HELOCS leaving no safety net and now people losing their jobs if they can even find a new job they will be lucky to make a third of what they used to they are just prolonging the inevitable. The banks just made it to easy for people to overextend themselves and now the chickens have come home to roost.
 
Update:

The person that did this installment plan just DEFAULTED on it! I sure don't understand how all this works! Why on earth would you go to all the trouble to set up a 5-year Property Tax Installment Plan and then a month later default on the whole thing, including the initial 20% payment? Especially when the 20% payment is just $1500! Now there's about another thousand in penalties. What are these people thinking!?

The gentleman that said it's a stall tactic seems to be on top of his game!
 
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