By Ryan C. Wood, Attorney at Law<\/p>\n
As we begin 2011 the mortgage crisis has yet to come to an end.\u00a0 Many homeowners are struggling to pay their mortgage and are forced to make very difficult decisions about who gets paid each month.\u00a0 So what about property taxes in this mess?\u00a0 What happens if property taxes are not paid?<\/p>\n
Property taxes are secured by the property you own, just like the mortgage you agreed to when you purchased your home.\u00a0 Unlike a credit card debt, personal loan or medical debt, property taxes and mortgages are not debts that you are personally liable for; they are only secured by the property itself.\u00a0 If your house is foreclosed or short-sold you will not owe the unpaid property taxes to the county.<\/p>\n
The next issue is whether you are trying to keep the house or not?\u00a0 If yes, then you will have to pay the property taxes at some point.\u00a0 If your property taxes have not been paid for a year or more, and you cannot make the lump sum payment, there is help.\u00a0 The first thing you should do is contact your county to see what options are available for you to enter into a repayment plan.\u00a0 Another option is to file Chapter 13 Bankruptcy<\/a> to make paying back the property taxes affordable by spreading out the unpaid property taxes over three to five years.\u00a0 See our Chapter 13 Time Line<\/a> for more information about filing a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy.<\/p>\n What about taking a cash advance on a credit card or borrowing from a retirement account to pay property taxes? \u00a0Do not do it.\u00a0 You can go for years without paying property taxes before your county initiates a tax sale.\u00a0 As mentioned above, property taxes are secured by the property.\u00a0 If the property is gone, so is your obligation to pay the property taxes and the property taxes that are past due.\u00a0 So why take on debt from a source that will be with you after the property is gone.\u00a0 Long after your property has been foreclosed on or short-sold you will still be making payments to the credit card or retirement account you borrowed the money from to pay your property taxes.\u00a0 So if you are having trouble paying your bills each month, your property taxes should not be at the top of your list.\u00a0 You should also not borrow funds to pay your property taxes.<\/p>\n For more information about property taxes and bankruptcy you may contact us toll free at 1-877-9NEW-LIFE.\u00a0 We have offices located in Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose and Redwood City proudly serving those in need of debt relief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What about taking a cash advance on a credit card or borrowing from a retirement account to pay property taxes? Do not do it. You can go for years without paying property taxes before your county initiates a tax sale. As mentioned above, property taxes are secured by the property. If the property is gone, so is your obligation to pay the property taxes and the property taxes that are past due. So why take on debt from a source that will be with you after the property is gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":965,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions\/965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}