Hi! I am new to the boards, but have been reading as much as I can. My husband and I want to sell our house and buy a new home this fall. I have a question about property taxes. We live in California. We paid cash for a fixer uppper house 5 years ago. We have had to put a lot of money into it, and as a result, we messed up on paying our property taxes in the beginning. We have paid last years and this years taxes, but we owe back taxes (starting with 1994). We owe $20,000. We are going to do a 5 year payment plan where we pay 20% ($4000) and then we pay the remaining amount in five payments scheduled once a year for 5 years. This is a payment plan set up by our county tax assessor.
My questions are in regards to getting preapproved for a mortgage in the fall. Obviously if we haven't paid off the remaining $16,000 in taxes by the time our house sells, it will come out of the sale, but how does this look? Will it affect our ability to get approved for a loan? Is it as bad as having tax liens? Is it better to have the taxes paid off before we talk to anyone about mortgages? If we pay off the taxes, can the loan officers/brokers tell that we were once behind in our taxes?
I don't know if it would help you to know a little bit more: husband's annual income $80,000, no credit card debt, no mortgage, fico scores for both of us are in the 630 range, we plan on putting a $250000 to $275000 down payment on a $500,000 or less house.
Thanks for any information that you can provide!
