KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The deadline for Jackson County taxpayers to appeal their property assessments is Monday.
Before the deadline, property owners continued to file into the Jackson County Assessor's Office at 1300 Washington Street in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, looking for relief.
“Our tax increase went up 72% and that’s a massive amount over two years," one of those taxpayers, Phillip Gunderson, said.
MORE COVERAGE | Jackson County proeprty assessments resources, stories
Gunderson and his wife appealed, but didn't get the answer they were looking for.
“They knocked it from $151,000 to I believe $127,000 and that’s still way too much," he said.
With nothing left to cut back on, Gunderson said they're considering moving.
“We’re looking at the possibility of finding a place that will either just buy our house and hopefully move down to Kentucky with our kids," he said.
Gunderson and his wife aren't the only ones considering leaving.
"I will finish what I got and I won’t buy any more and I’ll go home," another Jackson County taxpayer, Virginia Bettencourt, said.
Bettencourt buys and rehabilitates old homes in the Kansas City area.
“I go through the process of putting these houses back together to what they were originally," she said. "I restore oak floors. I restore original woodwork. I do everything to make it still what it was."
She said the architecture is what attracted her to the city. The property assessments? Not so much.
“My properties doubled and tripled and these are ones that I haven’t renovated yet," she said.
Bettencourt appealed, but, just like Gunderson, she wasn't satisfied. Her next step is a hearing with the Board of Equalization.
"I’m not real optimistic about it based on the reaction I got from the people inside the room today," she said. "They were kind of cut and dried. They weren’t really interested in hearing my background or what my goals are. They just said this is what it is. Take it or leave it.”
While Bettencourt and Gunderson received notices after filing an appeal, not everyone has and they are getting antsy with Monday's deadling looming.
In a statement, a spokesperson with the Jackson County Assessor's Office said:
We understand people want resolution immediately but this process takes time. Once someone files an appeal, they will be scheduled for a BOE hearing.
Property owners will receive notice of hearing date 7-10 days prior to the hearing date. All appeals filed prior to the July 31st deadline will be heard. The notifications are send via email if they provided an email address.
I encourage people to check their junk folder because at times email systems falsely identify the notice as spam. If no email address was provided, the notice will be mailed.
The Jackson County Assessor's Office will resume walk-in property reviews on Tuesday, Aug. 1, at its downtown office, 1300 Washington St.
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