If you pay your property tax with your mortgage payments, the lender collects a tax amount about your regular mortgage payment. The tax payment is calculated using the yearly estimated tax levy divided by the number of mortgage payments due during one mortgage year.
The tax payment is allocated to a tax account attached to your mortgage. Taxes will be paid from the tax account when taxes are due by the mortgage lender. Taxes are due in the middle of the year – June 30.
This means that the lender has to collect for 6 months into the previous year in order to have collected 1 full year worth of taxes by the time taxes are due i.e. to pay the City the total taxes due June 2020, the lender starts collecting in June 2019.
If you have a balance in your tax account, this amount will be returned to you by your mortgage lender on the sale of your property when your mortgage is paid out.
(https://myedmontonlawyer.com/what-are-property-tax-adjustments/)
