How does one record mortgage pay-off when no new home purchased?

warrenbh

Have looked and looked, but cannot find an answer anywhere in Quicken Help, Quicken Guides or Community

splasher

The same way as if you purchased a new home and got a new loan.

Except, rather than paying off the balance with a transfer from the new loan, you make the payment from a checking or savings account.

This only applies if this loan is not setup for online downloading, if setup for downloading, wait for the FI to download the payoff.

Boatnmaniac

To add to what @splasher stated:  Once the mortgage account register is showing it is paid off you can then go to Account Details for the mortgage account and on the Display Options tab you can click on Close Account (not Delete Account). 

There are also up to 3 boxes you can check on this tab for how you want the account to be displayed in Quicken.

splasher

The same way as if you purchased a new home and got a new loan.

Except, rather than paying off the balance with a transfer from the new loan, you make the payment from a checking or savings account.

This only applies if this loan is not setup for online downloading, if setup for downloading, wait for the FI to download the payoff.

Boatnmaniac

To add to what @splasher stated:  Once the mortgage account register is showing it is paid off you can then go to Account Details for the mortgage account and on the Display Options tab you can click on Close Account (not Delete Account). 

There are also up to 3 boxes you can check on this tab for how you want the account to be displayed in Quicken.

warrenbh

Many thanks! Now it seems to make sense.

warrenbh

Oops, a complication: the mortgage was not paid off from an existing account, but was paid off as part of the home sale process, through the escrow agent. I can record the details of the escrow transaction(s) with the receipt of the sale proceeds, but how do I get Quicken to indicate that the mortgage has been paid and where those funds came from?

volvogirl

When you entered the sale where did you put the proceeds?  All or part of that should be a transfer to the mortgage.  Then in the mortgage account you will probably need to add the final interest amount to zero it out the account.

warrenbh

In order to enter all the details of the sale settlement statement in the proceeds entry, I have to enter a bunch of negative values which then impact categories such as mortgage interest, mortgage principal, etc. the wrong way. Very confusing, but there must be a way to get this done correctly. Confusion mounts.

splasher

The transaction for the deposit from the proceeds would be a split transaction.
The net amount of the transaction would be your final cash received.
The 1st split line would be the sale price of the house, then a series of lines (negative) for the expenses of the sale with one of them being the transfer to the loan to pay it off, leaving the net deposit amount.
Now, if you don't want to deal with ALL of the negatives and don't care if later reporting won't show the true cost of the house sale, then reduce the 1st line to be the sum of the net cash received and the loan payoff and only show that sum and the loan payoff transfer.
It just depends on how accurate you want your financial records to be.

warrenbh

How do I enter a transfer in the category list? I can do a transfer as a separate transaction, but can't figure out how I'd do it all within a single transaction entry.
Perhaps I'm just not understanding how it all works.

volvogirl

You just enter the mortgage account in for the category and use square brackets like [Mortgage]

splasher

Just checking, you do know how to create a split, right?

warrenbh

volvogirl: thanks. I didn't know that you could use that for the purpose I described, but I do use it for fund transfers now that I think about it.

splasher: good question! I thought I did but volvogirl just taught me something useful, I think. I appreciate all the help and will try it all out.

volvogirl

I made you a screen shot.  Say you sold the house for $300,000 and had 20,000 expenses and paid off the Mortgage of 199,5j94.  So you got $80,406 in your checking account at the end.  This is what the split transactions would look like in your checking account.  What account are you making the entries?  

splasher

Yes, that is correct as far as the way you have entered the amounts.
I make no confirmation as to your tax liability since I am not a tax expert.

volvogirl

That was me posting a sample split entry not the op.  I don't know their amounts.  That was just a basic entry to show how a split would look like.  

warrenbh

You folks are spectacular. I did the entries prior to volvogirl's screenshot, and they (a) worked and (b) look remarkably like the screenshot. Problem appears solved.

Peripheral issue: on the final seller statement, there are some items (property tax, excise tax, water/sewer bill, etc.) for which I have "categories" but not "accounts". Any way to get those figures assigned to categories? If I enter them on the house sale transaction I have to do so as negative numbers to make the final deposit to my account come out right, but that also subtracts them from the several categories, which is not correct. Maybe what I'll do is just write myself a note to refer to the final statement on paper at tax time.

Thanks so very much for your efforts here!

volvogirl

Hmmm,  did you pay the items from the sale or did the buyer pay them for you?  Your split entry should not have come out right without those other items on it.  Maybe you needed to enter them as positives?  What do you mean it subtracts them from several categories?  It should not affect the other categories in the split.  Guess you need to list them for us.  

splasher

If you are entering a negative amount for property tax you owe at the time of the sale, then it is INCREASING the overall negative amount (expense) of your property taxes.
If you are confused about the way this works with the way the transfer to the loan for the payoff, the sign only flips on the transfers.  Run a report showing your property taxes and you will find that they are correct.
if you are receiving a refund of pre-paid property taxes because they are the buyer's responsibility, then you should be entering them as a positive amount and the price of the house would be reduced by that amount since they aren't part of the true price of the house.  In other words, you got money for the house AND you got money for the re-payment of pre-paid taxes.

warrenbh

You are so patient. . . . thanks. I'll work on it for a while and experiment a bit, based on your excellent advice. Luckily, "delete transaction" works well and gets me back to try something different. You are obviously "SUPER" users!!!!