For those following along at home, my attempt to get my mortgage company to allow me to handle the escrow payments (hazard insurance and property taxes) myself came to its conclusion today. (Previous details are here and here.) The letter from them reads as follows:

This letter is in response to your letter received on February 18, 2005, requesting a waiver of the escrow account on your mortgage loan.

The terms of your mortgage require that your mortgage company escrow for payment of taxes and/or insurance. Once established, XYZ Mortgage requires that the escrow account be maintained for the life of the loan. Therefore, we are unable to honor your request to terminate the escrow payment.

Your payment continues to include principal, interest, and escrow. XYZ Mortgage will not accept partial payments on your mortgage loan.

Well, it was worth a shot. Won't know if you don't ask, right?

At this point, I suppose I could refinance to another lender who'd allow me to handle the taxes and insurance myself. But I really do not want the refi hassle. Besides, my current mortage is of the 15-year, 5.5% fixed variety, and I'm not likely to do much better than that at this time. Also, my MCC Credit Certificate means the federal government reimburses me for 50 percent of my mortgage interest each year in the form of a tax credit. So my effective mortgage rate is really 2.75 percent.

If I refi, I'll have to pay all the usual closing costs, plus the fee (I seem to recall $150, but that is probably wrong) to transfer the MCC to the refinanced mortgage. Unless I could get a significantly better rate than 5.5 percent, then this seems a pretty silly way to spend all that money ... just so I could get rid of the escrow account.

Ah well. You can't win 'em all.

Labels: Mortgages