Some El Pasoans are receiving delinquent property tax notices after they paid taxes through a local escrow company, but the company says the city tax collector's office is to blame.

Property taxes were due Jan. 31, but Rhonda Bridge, owner of Escrow Inc. in east El Paso, said her company was well ahead of the deadline and received a receipt from the El Paso Tax Assessor-Collector on Jan. 24. But right before President's Day weekend, Escrow Inc. received nearly 20 delinquent tax notifications.

"With the notifications, I also received about four different notifications that one of the accounts had been overpaid," Bridge said. "It looks like the check Escrow Inc. wrote for a collective number of clients was deposited in a single account. We're assuring our clients that the taxes have been paid on our half because we have the receipt for the total sum."

For El Pasoan Beatrice Baca, getting a delinquent tax notice was particularly worrisome. Baca used to manage her property taxes with Southwest Escrow, which abruptly closed its doors in 2009, allegedly making off with its clients' money, leaving Baca scrambling to earn money to pay for property taxes a second time. So when Baca got a delinquent notice this year, she thought the same thing was happening at Escrow Inc.

"When we were with Southwest Escrow, I thought I had my taxes paid," Baca said. "The first bill arrived, but I just thought that they hadn't processed the payment yet. They ended up robbing us. I own two different houses; it was a lot of money."

El Paso City Tax Assessor-Collector Juan Sandoval said it's very likely the money processed incorrectly, but because the property taxes were mailed, the mistake likely happened in a city other than El Paso.

"We post over 2 million payments a year, and it's impossible to post over 2 million payments perfectly," Sandoval said. "All of the mailed payments are sent to the Wells Fargo Processing Center in Dallas, but this is something we can and will fix."

Sandoval also said other reasons El Pasoans may receive a delinquent tax notice are due to common mistakes like writing the wrong account number on the payment or writing a check with a different written amount than the numerical amount. Delinquent tax notices may also be sent out even after the tax has been paid, if the payment was late.

"During the peak, the last two weeks of February, it may take a couple of days to process," Sandoval said. "Especially if you mailed your property tax payments."