Escrow Account

I can't think of anyway to embellish the details of our escrow account.   Tax laws, interest rates and escrow are technical details that I have trouble bringing to life with words.  Let me give it a try anyway.

I called to get the money out of our escrow account the day I also turned off the not-so-easy-pay for our mortgage payment.  An escrow account is a holding tank for money that gets used for things other than paying for the house, such as insurance and taxes.  We have to keep a lot of money in the account, as our house is very expensive.

I wanted the money in the escrow account so that I could pay my taxes and insurance, in fear that the lender would use the money to pay my mortgage, or as 1/1000 of a bonus for Vikram Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup. 

Here is the deal on getting money out of escrow accounts at Citi:  If you are current on your payment, then you can get the money out.  At the time I called, I was current, but we all know how that turned out.  You can also get the money out of escrow if your house is worth 75% of what you owe on the house (loan to value ratio).  Clearly they are worried that folks like me, whose loan to value ration is 63% are a risk.

A person with a loan to value ratio of 63% might decide it is silly to pay the mortgage and want the cash out of her account.  They offered to snail-mail me some forms within 10 business days (which is really 2 weeks).  The form did arrive 2 weeks later, and it had more information on it than the lady on the phone told me, that bit about the loan to value ratio, she forgot to mention, or at least I'm letting her 'forget'.

Can I interest you in some tax law tomorrow?