SANATOGA PA – Pretend your house in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township catches fire. You submit a claim to the home insurance underwriter, it’s accepted as valid, and the insurance company prepares to write you a check to pay for repairs.
To whom does the check get written?
But first, the insurer asks the township what liens or claims of debt, if any, it holds against your property. Maybe you missed a real estate tax payment a couple of years back; maybe you passed on paying a sewer bill. If so, under a law being considered by the Board of Commissioners, Lower Pottsgrove could recover what it’s owed from your insurance proceeds.
That’s the idea, at least, behind a “Fire Insurance Escrow Act” that commissioners have unanimously asked their solicitor, R. Kurtz Holloway, to research and present for further consideration at a future board meeting.
It could be, Holloway said recently, “an effective tool that permits the township to put in place some leverage as one more means to collect” money it is due.
Ironically, the act wasn’t the board’s idea, or that of Holloway.
In recent months, following an actual fire on which a claim was submitted, the insurer of that property dutifully asked Lower Pottsgrove if it had any liens filed against the owner, as well as the legal means to get paid on them. “No,” and “no,” were the answers; but the request prompted township Manager Rodney Hawthorne to think such a law might be helpful. Holloway agreed.
If finally approved, the act would not force direct payment to the township. Instead the amount of any liens would be escrowed, or put into a savings account, by the insurer while the property owner and township officials negotiate some kind of settlement for payment.
In some cases, the escrow may total only a few hundred dollars; in others, thousands. The act might be of specific help, Holloway noted, in dealing with accumulated, long-outstanding bills against abandoned properties and absentee owners.
All five commissioners, who voted on the matter during the board’s Nov. 18 (2010) meeting at the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Pottstown PA, liked what they heard and authorized the solicitor to proceed.
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of Nov. 18):
- Lower Pottsgrove Sees New Way To Claim What It’s Owed
- Commissioners Approve Township Board Appointments
- As Year Ends, Lower Pottsgrove Does A Little Cleaning
- No Change In Town’s 2011 Base Tax Rate, But Bills To Rise Slightly
- Legal Fight Shapes Up Over Signs In Lower Pottsgrove
- Township Thanks Dailey For 23 Years Of Volunteer Service
- ‘No Parking’ Zone Approved On North Adams Street
Photo from Clipart.com
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[...] Lower Pottsgrove Sees New Way To Claim What It’s Owed Township commissioners authorized their solicitor to investigate a law that would allow Lower Pottsgrove to seek payment of property liens from fire insurance proceeds. [...]
[...] Advertising a proposal to create a law that would escrow amounts owed to the township in unpaid tax or other bills from the proceeds of property owners’ fire insurance claims. Read a story about it here; [...]