GRAIN VALLEY, Mo. — Jackie Dudley, like many others, got a notice in the mail that Jackson County home assessments were increasing.
“I received it in the mail and read that it was raised by 97.72%, I almost had a stroke,” said the 83-year-old widowed homeowner.
At her age, Dudley was shocked to see how much the value of her home increased.
“I wouldn’t have been able to afford to stay here because it was going to affect my house payment,” said Dudley.
As a widow living on a fixed income, Dudley was very reluctant to get up, move out and leave her house, a home she has made of plenty of memories with.
"I’ve lived in this house for 15 years, so where would I have gone, heaven only knows,” Dudley said,” You can’t buy a house right now because everything has gone up, up, up and you jump from the frying pan into the fire.”
However, with the help of her realtor, who looked at comparable sales in her neighborhood, she was able to get her home value down from $430,000 to $340,000.
“That’s all they were really interested in was those comps,” Dudley said. “ I found out fences and driveways mean nothing to them. That's not part of the assessment at all. But only if your house has a roof that leaks, it matters. See my roof is 18-years-old but if it doesn’t leak, they don’t care about that either.”
Now that Dudley had decreased her home value about 40%, she says she is waiting to see how much it will impact her monthly mortgage.
“It is what it is, we will see when the time comes then I may have a stroke, I don’t know,” Dudley said.
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