You can contest your Jackson County tax assessment, but you may need to wait for hours
In a small, bright waiting room in a downtown Kansas City office, dozens of homeowners clutched folders stuffed with printed documents as they waited for their chance to contest their recent property tax assessments.
Tensions have run high in recent weeks at public meetings and in private Facebook groups alike as exasperated Jackson County homeowners sound the alarm over their sky-high home valuations.
But the energy at 1300 Washington St. — the epicenter of the county’s informal valuation review process — was calm late Tuesday morning as assessors ferried homeowners into offices for review meetings.
“It was a piece of cake,” said Michael Kelley, a Blue Springs homeowner who told The Star that his review took about an hour but lowered his valuation by nearly $70,000. “What’s an hour to save that kind of money?”
But not everyone had such a smooth experience. Those who arrived without an appointment to what the county advertised as a “walk-in” review center described waiting hours for their turn to plead their case before assessors. As the waiting room’s capacity fluctuated — at one point spilling out into the atrium — the “walk-in” clients remained.
Out of the 20 or so homeowners that The Star spoke with on Tuesday, those who had scheduled appointments shared mostly positive experiences with the review process, while walk-in clients expressed frustration at the assessment department’s confusing messaging and long wait times.
“I did not know (how) to get an appointment,” said Independence homeowner Thomas, who asked to be identified only by his first name. “I read that stuff (online) over and over again, and there’s a lot of questions I had and a lot of conflicting messages.”
At the time he spoke with The Star, Thomas had been waiting for around two hours. Others had been waiting twice as long.
Hours of waiting for those without appointments
Various walk-in clients told The Star they had been waiting for between one and four hours for their chance at a review meeting.
Gail McCann Beatty, the director of the county’s assessment department, said that wait times for walk-in clients are significant, and people may get turned away.
“They will likely be here most of the day,” Beatty said. “We may stop the number of people that are coming in so that we don’t have someone that sits here literally all day and then can’t get seen.”
Thomas’s valuation this year increased by nearly 150%, from $65,000 in 2021 to $162,000 in 2023. He said that since he is retired, he was prepared to wait all day for his chance to be seen.
“If you read the stuff on the internet, I was left with a lot of questions, like what to do next,” Thomas said. “This is much more involved than it was four years ago, when we had the same problem.”
The problem he’s referring to? Uproar ensued in 2019 when homeowners received dramatically increased valuations from Jackson County assessors, who with prompting from Jefferson City were working to bring assessments closer to market value after years of undervaluing them.
Both Legal Aid of Western Missouri and the American Civil Liberties Union filed lawsuits against the county on behalf of low-income residents in neighborhoods like Ivanhoe and the Westside, whose assessments doubled or nearly tripled from the previous year. Those higher valuations targeted predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, the lawsuit argued.
“My girlfriend, who came in yesterday, said things worked out well for her,” said Viola Maxwell, a Waldo homeowner who had been waiting for just under four hours when she spoke to The Star. “I thought, well, I’ll just take some snacks and wait the day out.”
But while some arrived expecting a long wait, others were surprised by the slow pace and said the county’s instructions for how to make an appointment were unclear.
“I took it that walk-ins were going to be treated just like appointments, but they’re not,” said one homeowner who had been waiting for over three hours. She shared that only one walk-in client was being seen per 12-15 people with appointments.
The overwhelming majority of homeowners present at the office Tuesday were seniors. None of those who spoke with The Star were missing work to be there — most said that they were retired, while one said that she is currently unemployed.
The office is only open for these kinds of review meetings from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday.
Some had success negotiating a lower valuation
Homeowners who were able to meet with an assessor seemed to have mixed results. Most who talked with The Star said they were able to negotiate their valuations down, but some were still unhappy with the results.
“I was expecting it to be quite a bit less than we went ahead and agreed to,” said Joyce Wrinkle, a homeowner in Raytown. “I just agreed to it because I’m not going to go ahead and do an appeal, and we don’t really want to do the walkthrough… you don’t even know who you’re letting in your house.”
Homeowners whose assessed property value has increased by more than 15% since 2021 have the option to request that a county assessor conduct an inspection of the inside of the home. Several people told The Star that this idea made them uncomfortable and that they didn’t plan to pursue this option.
Wrinkle said that although she brought along information about the values of comparable homes in her neighborhood — called “comps” in the assessment world — her assessor kept pointing to more expensive homes slightly farther away.
“She found (comps) that were in the next bracket higher,” she said. “When I asked her to go back and look at mine, she did, but she just paper clipped them back together and said, ‘Well here’s what I’m finding.’”
Ultimately, Wrinkle’s valuation only dropped from a 110% increase to an 80% increase since 2021.
Tom, a Waldo homeowner who asked to be identified only by first name, had more success: He said he managed to lower his valuation from a 35% increase down to a 10% increase.
“Come prepared,” he said. “I gave him 32 homes in my neighborhood and showed him what the average price per square foot was, and he said, ‘Okay, I’ll go with that.’”
Vickie Zagar from Independence had an even better experience. While the county estimated that her home had risen in value from around $80,000 in 2021 to around $109,000 in 2023 — an increase of roughly 36% — she said she was able to negotiate back down to around the previous valuation.
“The people were very friendly and they seemed very helpful,” she said. “I was pleasantly surprised.”
Multiple homeowners, even those who had been waiting for hours and had not yet met with assessors, said the assessment department’s employees overseeing the waiting room were polite and courteous.
How do I make an appointment for an informal valuation review?
Homeowners can make an appointment for an informal valuation review when they file an appeal online through the department’s website. The deadline to file this appeal is July 10.
This step has been confusing for a lot of homeowners because the informal review meeting was originally designed to prevent the need for an official appeal. However, according to the Jackson County assessment office, if you want to schedule an informal review appointment online, you must first file an official appeal.
Gail McCann Beatty, the director of the county’s assessment department, said the reason for this appointment system is that the county may not be able to provide an informal review for every resident who requests one.
“We want to make sure that we are protecting everyone’s appeal rights,” Beatty said. “So by requiring them to file the appeal to get the informal (meeting), it ensures that if for whatever reason, we can’t get through all the informals, that they have not missed out on their opportunity to file an appeal.”
Some homeowners told The Star that they were also able to schedule appointments over the phone by calling the number on their paper valuation notice, 1-877-895-9675.
If you prefer to walk in with no appointment, be prepared to wait. The 1300 Washington St. office is open from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Here are three things you may want to bring to your value review appointment. And get the answers to more questions about the assessment and review processes here.
Do you have more questions about your property value assessment? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.
This story was originally published June 28, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
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