We are in a lease to purchase agreement on a home. We pay taxes each month to the seller. The property taxes have not been paid by the seller to the courthouse Is this legal?

You must read your lease/purchase agreement carefully to see whether the method of handling taxes was specifically addressed (I hope it was) and how this is being handled by your property owner. Even in a standard mortgage agreement (where the mortgage is held by a lending institution) the lender customarily collects 1/12th of the taxes due on the mortgaged property every month as part of the monthly mortrgage payment - places it into an escrow account - and then pays the property taxes once every year prior to the due date. This is a standard industry procedure. If your lease/purchase agreement does not specifically address this, ask your owner if that is the method he is using. Just because your owner has not been paying taxes monthly to the courthouse does not necessarily mean that he is in arrears. He may simply be doing exactly what the big lending institutions do (i.e.- paying once a year). ON THE OTHER HAND; If your check of the courthouse records reveals that the county considers the property tax on the property to be in arrears, contact your owner immediately and advise him that you are aware of the shorfall and request that he bring the tax payments up to date immediately. In order to protect your investment, not to mention the roof over your head, it probably wouldn't hurt to also contact an attorney that specializes in real estate law at the same time.