Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
My mortgage company was paying my property taxes for one of my houses. They received money back from the county and in turn sent me a check. I was contacted by another bank this year saying I owed them money because the county had erroneously put their payments toward my house. Am I liable to the bank? Shouldn't they have to seek remedy from the county who made the error?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Say the county pays them back, then you would have to pay the county. How is the end result any different, except to make it more difficult to reach the same outcome?
When a payment is made to you or on your behalf in error, you are legally required to pay back the money unless two things are true: (1) you can honestly claim that you had no idea and no reason to know the payment was a mistake in the first place, and (2) your have irrevocably and materially changed your position in justifiable reliance upon your mistaken belief that you were entitled to the mistaken payment. Since I doubt you could make both claims to the satisfaction of a court, you are better off refunding the money. I also agree with Mr. Shers, but he omitted the legal reasoning from his answer.
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