So when we closed on our house, everyone was all "Oh your taxes are going to go down becuase you're going to be able to claim homestead, supplemental, and mortgage deductions. YAY!" Also, due to the delay in closing our seller made us pay almost $1000 in 'carrying costs' at closing for the delay. Seller is land developer of the neighborhood behind us.
FFWD to a couple weeks ago, we get our tax statement. Turns out that our taxes are not going down...at all. Because our seller claimed homestead (How? IDK, because no one lived here since early 2013 until we moved in and it was a rent-to-own situation that fell through) and supplemental. Reporting that won't help me because they'd go after the seller for the money and I wouldn't see any break or credit. While I have a mortgage deduction and the percentage rate on my taxes has gone down, my taxable property value has gone up. So it negates any 'gains'. I'll actually be paying more (only ~$5/month, but still).
Honestly, I was skeptical of the tax stuff because I was trying to figure out how I'd be paying the same amount of taxes on this house as I did the last one, even though our last house was valued around $80-90k less than this house. Also, I was talking to my mom about it and she said the realtor that was 'helping' our seller (who totally dropped off the face of the earth at the end of the transaction) went to prison years back for RE fraud. So, I wonder if he found a 'loophole' regarding the taxes. The house hasn't been owned by someone else other than our seller since around 2010.
I'm not that upset or anything because I hadn't calculated a lower payment or anything. The $1000 I paid at closing does stick in my craw a little.
Maybe I'll see if we can refi. Ha.
