I get a notice of what my taxes are, but I don’t get a bill.
I don’t know exactly how it works, all I know it is done automagically.
I DO know that even tho I live in a city, the county is in charge of figuring out what my taxes are (assessments and such), I had to send them a form saying I wasn’t using my house as a buisiness.
Brian
Interesting. jarbabyj, from these responses it’s clear you shouldn’t listen to me.
[off topic]
By the way, did you see where USA Today has named Brett Favre as the number #1 toughest athlete? 
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From the government’s point of view it is just as easy for them to mail the bill for real estate taxes to the mortgage company as it is to mail it to the homeowner. Typically the government has a data base account set up for each parcel of real estate. Included in the data is the name of the property owner, the property’s physical address and the owner’s mailing address. For escrowed tax purposes, the owner tells the goverment that his mailing address is care of the mortgage company, and then the government mails the tax bill to the mortgage company which in turn pays the bill out of the escrowed funds.
When we first bought our house (about six years ago) we were required to have an escrow account by the bank because our mortgage to value ratio was higher than 80%. After we refinanced last summer, they didn’t require escrow – they just asked if we would like to have one or not.
We decided to keep an escrow account just because it was more convienent. Yeah, we are missing out on some interest, but this way everything is completely automatic and I never have to worry about it. Everything comes out of my checking account once a month (my checking is at the same back as the mortgage), and the bank takes care of paying my taxes and my homeowners insurance. I get a notice from the city twice a year when taxes are due (December and June) and I just file it away.
With interest rates as low as they are now, the amount of interest I would get from saving/managing the money in my own account is miniscule – espeicially since the account would be drained to zero every six months. It’s worth this “service fee” to not have to manage it myself.