Friday, June 3, 2011

Surprise Bills Are Not The Kind Of Surprises I Like

I was so happy to get off of work today after a long day and go home. I stopped to pick up the mail. There was an official looking letter in there. Oh no, I thought I had been caught speeding by one of those cameras or something. I opened it and it said that I hadn't paid the property tax on my mobile home. That is weird. I thought I paid that. I went home and looked up my records. Yes, I paid it. Then I noticed that it said 2004 taxes. Hmm...2004. I keep too much stuff so I was able to look up my records and unfortunately, I think they are right.

2004 was the year that I bought my house. I was doing lots of mortgage paperwork in October when the tax bills show up and writing lots of checks, getting the utilities turned on etc.... My mobile home tax was one bill that I used to forget about. I paid the property taxes for my two parcels but obviously completely forgot about the poor mobile home.

The tax is usually only $100 but now I owe $250 or else they will take my mobile home away! Actually, I was thinking that I would have to pay someone to haul it away but now the county has offered to haul it for free! Haha...I am sure they would send me the bill to haul it. That would be around $3,000. The dogs don't want me to get rid of it just yet either so I had better pay up.

I got a dog adopted this evening and I am very tired so I am going to bed. I will update my mortgage status tomorrow.

4 comments:

Lizzie @ her homeworld said...

Well I am not surprised you didn't see that coming. Who sends out bills seven years late? Enjoy your weekend.

Daizy said...

I know, really. It says delinquent in 2005. I think they just stay quiet so they can collect the interest.

Dave said...

Back in the 1980s I had something like this happen to me. I had some income for which I never received a W-2 form and forgot about it at tax time the following year. I owed about $100 to the IRS plus some interest for 2.5 years which had passed. At least the state tax department never caught up with me!

It was an unpleasant surprise, for sure.

Daizy said...

Dave, if things like that can go unnoticed for years it makes me wonder if there are other bills out there lurking. I supposed most people want to be paid right away though. That's what collections people are for.