You probably should contact your insurance company anyway to get the mortgage holder removed as an assignee, or whatever they call it.
Agreeing with both of @notrichenoughās comments above. Took several rounds of communication with the bank to issue whatever that final paperwork was and years longer for the HO insurance to stop referencing the lender on the insurance renewal.
Not sure why anyone would have the mortgage company make their ins./tax payments unless they had to (<80% LTV). (It becomes an interest-free loan to the mortgage company.)
Our mortgage holder required we allow them to have escrow acct and pay homeownerās insurance and property tax and hurricane insurance. We had way more than 60% equity in the propertyāmore like 80-90%. We argued but the lender said it was a non-negotiable mortgage term. We had no trouble getting all of those sent to us when we paid off the mortgage and removing the lenderās name from the insurance policies.
80% LTV controls whether you pay PMI, not whether you have to escrow insurance and taxes.
Iāve had at least 20 different mortgages over the years and lenderās policies are not consistent:
Some let you opt out of escrowing just by asking.
Some let you opt out for a fee, usually 1/4 point or so, sometimes for a fixed fee like $250.
Some will require escrow of either taxes or insurance but not both.
Some will require you to escrow everything without any option of opting out.
Some escrow companies require you to forward them every tax bill. Some are smart enough to figure it out on their own and you donāt have to send them the bills. Some pay late every. single. time. and eat the late fees.
We generally try to get out of escrowing, even if we had to pay a fee, because of too many bad experiences of escrow companies screwing up and not paying the bills.
In our state the escrow company is required to pay interest, but the rate is laughably small, down there with savings accounts. Last year I think one escrow company paid us 66 cents in interest for the year.
@notrichenough, I think weāve had the experience that they wanted to charge more for me to pay taxes and insurance themselves. So we ended up with the having them escrowed. No big problems that I remember.
@1214mom, sounds like a wonderful time. Will report back after this summer.
@oldfort, prenups probably make sense. In this case, theyād need to do a contract in case they break up rather than get married.
Looks like some states (at least California) regulate when a lender may require an escrow / impound account for property tax and insurance bills.
http://www.castlemortgage.com/Content/documents/statespecific/BP_CA_Loan_Impound_Disclosure_and_Waiver.pdf
ShawWife and I have been in Florida for two weeks. Have had a wonderful time. On our last couple of days, we looked at a couple of houses. Found a very nice one. I need to do the planning with my accountant on changing residences.
One interesting thing. My consulting firm used to have an office for each consultant. Now, they live where they want and the office has just been for the three admin folks. Now, weāve cut down to two ā in part because of technology and in part because we are doing less of an area of the business that needs more administrative support. So, I asked the office manager to prepare three options: no office at all, an office in a cheaper location, or something in the middle (WeWork or equivalent).
While Iām not planning the next chapter as Iām still going full blast on my existing business, I mentioned the company Iāve started with some Stanford kids. Last night, we signed a term sheet agreeing to take on $3.5 MM from some VCs. Still need to do definitive agreements and maybe slot in a couple of smaller, āstrategicā VCs. But, this will take up some of my time over the next few years. I find it very invigorating.
Just reading a bit on the tax law changes as I begin working on our taxes todayā¦will see how it comes out.
I donāt like Motley Fool, but this article has an interesting graph that visualizes what the breakeven point will be if one takes SS at 62, full retirement age, or 70:
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2018/10/21/heres-the-maximum-social-security-benefit-in-2019.aspx
Scroll down a bit, it is at the bottom of the article.
^ The calculation on when to take SS benefits can be more complicated if youāre thinking not only about maximizing your own benefit, but also maximizing the survivor benefit of a surviving spouse. Itās impossible to know, of course, but I think thereās a strong possibility my DW will outlive me, possibly by decades. Sheās 5 years younger, much healthier, her mother lived to 99 and her maternal grandmother to 97, and of course female life expectancy is generally longer. Iām waiting until Iām 70 to start collecting SS benefits, not so much because Iām gambling Iāll live well into my 80s, but because when I die DW will get the maximum survivor benefit which will be significantly larger than her own SS benefit based on her lifetime earnings.
The breakeven point is rather primitive imo. Letās say your benefit is $10K/year at FRA 66. If you postpone until 70, you are parking $40K somewhere. 8% increase per year you postpone becomes 32% at 70 and you receive $13,200. Sounds like a good deal except to distribute $40K your own money $3,200 per year, it would take 12.5 years or break even point. They are not including possible appreciation of $40K. You will have to live longer than the breakeven point to truly break even.
Exactly. And a survivor benefit can be a huge differentiator. The other thing missing in a simplistic breakeven analysis is Spousal benefits. Yes, both survivor and spousal make the article more complex, but that is the point. Filing for SS is complex, and such articles can be misleading for married folks.
Igloo: in your example. 1) you need to apply a discount factor against those dollars; 2) also need to run the dollars against the probability of receiving them, i.e., mortality tables. Mike Piperās free Open Social Security does a great job on both.
I agree that the article oversimplifies a lot of things (and Motley Fool is generally a collection of crap), but that graph gives a good visual food for thought.
For us, it will not make a dent to try to maximize Mrās benefits/my spousal benefits for many reasons. We are like two single people for what it is worth. 
We donāt have to worry about or deal with SS survivor benefitā¦at all. My benefit is a just enough to cover my Medicare cost, and IRRMAā¦plus $27 a month.
Iām never entitled to collect based on my husbandās earnings.
And he sure wouldnāt be interested in collecting based on mine!
The joys of working as a teacher in a state that chose not to have public school educators contribute to SSā¦so subject to offset and windfall provisions.
Believe meā¦if I could collect based on my husbandās SS benefitā¦that would be a windfall for me!
@thumper1 this might be OT but I hate that rule. My mom a state employee is really hurt financially by this. It makes no sense that it canāt be either the state pension or 1/2 of survivors benefits, whichever is bigger.
Good luck.
If you are still working at age 69-70, does it make sense to wait until 70?
@BunsenBurner I like this graph because it gives an age - 78. If you know you will be dead by 78, then you should definitely start collecting at 62. If you think you will die in your mid-80s, then the 67 or 70 options are quite similar. I would almost go with collecting at 70 just as longevity insurance, because who knows what medical advances will end up keeping us alive for way longer than we ever expected.
Unless you need the money for living expenses, yes, wait until 70.