When Suzy Amparan and her three children moved into their south Kansas City home in 2021, the mortgage and property tax payments were $772 a month.
But in March 2023, when Amparan received her monthly bill, she owed almost $1,500.
She frantically called her mortgage lender, which told her that her property taxes had risen. But she said no one ever came to inspect her house.
Takeaways
- Many property owners in Jackson County and other parts of Missouri have seen their property tax bills rise significantly in recent years.
- That’s partly due to years of underassessment followed by rapid reassessment, leading to a spike in assessed property values and higher tax bills.
- A mechanism in the state constitution is meant to dampen those dramatic increases, but state lawmakers say it’s not working as it should.
- As state lawmakers prepare to return to Jefferson City, Republicans and Democrats alike say the property tax system needs to be changed.
“So then I call the property tax (people), and the offices are bombarded with people, and I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’” Amparan said. “It’s chaos.”…