Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

If you do not plan to redeem the property but rather let it go to foreclosure and you are sure the loan will not permit a deficiency judgment to be taken against you [and do not plan to sell any other property in that county for the next few years -- so they will not try to take it out of the sales price for that property], it makes no sense to pay one cost but not the other.

Deficiency judgments don't result from foreclosures by trustee's sale.........if the situation with the financing is pretty straightforward, your chances of a foreclosure resulting in a deficiency judgment (i.e., after a court foreclosure proceeding) is very small. I'd say skip the payment to the tax collector.