The amounts of Monroe County Property Taxes for the tax year 2008 payable in 2009 should be official this week. The county treasurer will mail the tax bills shortly thereafter and the first installment of property taxes will be due Friday June 26, 2009.
We currently have access to the uncertified tax amounts and are disclosing those amounts in our title commitments. Once the state certifies the amount we will be able to pay those taxes at closing and prorate the taxes for this year using these new amounts. (Last year an entire township's taxes were incorrectly certified and it did lead to some problems for a few closings.)
If both the buyers and sellers wish to prorate on the uncertified amounts, we're fine with that. We just need to have them sign our tax proration instructions reflecting that agreement.
I've reviewed a few files with uncertified taxes. It appears that there's little change from last year in the amount of the taxes on properties with valid homestead exemptions. I suspect that on other property types the news won't be quite so good.
Once the new taxes are certified, we will obtain the new amounts for all our files going back to early March that we holding tax escrows on. We then cut checks to pay the first installment of taxes. After we're certain the payments have been applied correctly, which might not be for six to eight weeks, we will return any balances remaining in the escrow to the owner.
Even though tax bills are again late this year, it's the earliest they've been out in quite a while. That's good news for buyers and sellers since taxes can be paid and prorated on current information.
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