Travis Bunn

Founder, AppealDesk · Published March 27, 2026 · Updated August 25, 2026

Missouri Only Reassesses Your Home Every Other Year. Your Escrow Account Still Checks Every Twelve Months.

Updated August 2026

Missouri sets your property's value as of January 1, but it only does the actual reassessment work in odd years, 2025, 2027, and so on. In even years, the county simply carries forward whatever value it landed on the prior odd year. Increase notices mail out in May of reassessment years, and whether or not you got one, Missouri gives every homeowner the same statewide window to fight the number on the books: appeal to the county Board of Equalization before the second Monday in July, under RSMo 137.385. In 2026 that fell on July 13; in 2027 it lands on July 12.

Here is the mismatch homeowners with a mortgage rarely see coming. Your mortgage servicer does not run on Missouri's odd-year, even-year rhythm. Under federal Regulation X, it runs its own escrow analysis once every twelve months, on a computation year set by your loan, not by the assessor's calendar. It does not know or care whether this year was a reassessment year, whether your appeal is still working its way through the Board of Equalization, or whether the State Tax Commission has even scheduled your case. It just pays whatever bill the county sends. A win that starts with a July filing can sit unrecognized in your monthly payment for a year or more, straddling an entire odd-even cycle before it shows up.

What Over-Assessed Actually Means in Missouri

Missouri taxes residential real property at 19% of its true value in money under Mo. Rev. Stat. 137.115. That 19% ratio is one of four constitutional subclass ratios (agricultural at 12% of productive value, commercial at 32%, personal property at 33 and one-third percent), and none of them have changed since they were adopted; changing a ratio takes a constitutional amendment, not a statute.

The part that trips people up is the two-year rhythm. Your county reassesses market value as of January 1 in odd years only. In the even year that follows, your assessed value is not recalculated, it is simply carried forward from the prior odd year. That means "over-assessed" in Missouri almost always traces back to a specific odd-year notice, even if the tax bill you are staring at arrived in an even year. If you think your value is wrong, do not assume you missed your chance just because this is not a reassessment year. The Board of Equalization deadline runs every year, not just odd ones, and it is your entry point to contest whatever number is currently on the roll, carried-forward or freshly reassessed.

Three Levels, and Your Escrow Account Isn't Tracking Any of Them

Missouri's appeal path has three stops. Most cases resolve before the third:

1. County Assessor (Informal). An informal conversation with the assessor's office, usually before the formal Board of Equalization filing. Bring comparable sales. Many disputes end here without ever reaching a hearing.
2. Board of Equalization. File before the second Monday in July under RSMo 137.385. The county clerk serves as secretary of the board, and the board may extend the filing window at its own discretion, but do not count on that; treat the statutory date as firm.
3. State Tax Commission. Under RSMo 138.430, you can escalate to the State Tax Commission within the time prescribed by statute or 30 days after the Board of Equalization's decision, whichever is later. The Commission itself puts a hard number on that: a Complaint for Review of Assessment is due on or before September 30 of the assessment year, or within 30 days of the board's decision, whichever is later, and it cannot extend that deadline for you.

Notice the trap in that third deadline. If your Board of Equalization hearing does not produce a decision until October, your September 30 date has already passed, so the 30-days-after-decision clock is the one that governs. But if you are still waiting on a decision as September 30 approaches and have no confirmed hearing date, do not assume the later date will save you. Track both dates and confirm your specific county's timeline before you rely on the extension.

Meanwhile: The RESPA Clock That Doesn't Know Which Year You're In

Your escrow account is governed by federal law, not Missouri law. Under Regulation X, 12 CFR 1024.17(c)(3), your servicer must run an escrow analysis once per computation year, a twelve-month cycle tied to your loan, unrelated to whether Missouri happened to reassess your home that year. The analysis looks at what the servicer actually paid the county and projects what it expects to pay next. It has no field for "pending Board of Equalization appeal" or "waiting on the State Tax Commission." It simply pays whatever bill the county sends, built off whatever value is currently on the roll.

That is the collision. Missouri's two-year assessment rhythm and your servicer's one-year escrow rhythm are never synchronized. A value that gets contested in an odd year can still be under appeal when the even year rolls around, meaning your servicer pays the same disputed number twice, once in each year of the cycle, before the case resolves and the county issues a corrected bill.

A worked example (hypothetical, not a real case)

Say a homeowner in Greene County has a home the county assessed at Missouri's median value, $182,000, going into the 2025 reassessment. Her May 2025 notice raises that to $205,000. At Missouri's 0.93% effective tax rate, the $182,000 figure works out to about $1,693 a year; the higher $205,000 figure works out to roughly $1,907 a year, or about $159 a month if spread evenly. (Rates and levies vary by taxing district, so treat this as illustration, not a quote.) She tries an informal review with the assessor, is not satisfied, and files with the Board of Equalization before the second Monday in July. The board does not rule until late October, well past September 30, so her State Tax Commission deadline becomes 30 days after that October decision, and she escalates.

• 2025 tax bill (reassessment year): Escrow pays the full $1,907 based on the noticed $205,000 value. Case still open at the Board of Equalization.
• 2025 escrow analysis: No change. The analysis simply confirms the servicer paid what the county billed.
• 2026 tax bill (carry-forward year): Missouri does not reassess in even years, so the county carries the same disputed $205,000 forward. Escrow pays $1,907 again while the State Tax Commission case is still pending.
• State Tax Commission decision, mid-2026: Rules for the homeowner, correcting the value back down to $182,000, a savings of roughly $214 a year.
• Refund and go-forward adjustment: Only happens at the next escrow analysis after the county actually updates the roll and issues a corrected bill.

More than a year passed between her May 2025 notice and the mid-2026 correction actually reaching her tax bill, and because 2027 is Missouri's next reassessment year, there is no guarantee the corrected number holds beyond that. A win fixes the current cycle. It does not freeze the value forever.

When the Win Finally Reaches Your Escrow Account

Whichever level rules in your favor, the county updates the roll, the collector issues a corrected tax bill (or a refund, if the disputed amount was already collected), and none of that touches your monthly payment until your servicer sees it. Three federal rules in 12 CFR 1024.17 control what happens from there:

• The surplus rule. If your next analysis shows a surplus of $50 or more, the servicer must refund it within 30 days, provided you are current on the loan (Section 1024.17(f)(2)(i) and (f)(2)(ii)).
• The cushion cap. Servicers can hold a cushion of no more than one-sixth of estimated annual disbursements, roughly two months' worth (Section 1024.17(c)(5)). A lower Missouri tax bill shrinks the allowed cushion too, which is often why a post-appeal refund runs bigger than the tax savings alone.
• The off-cycle option. A servicer is permitted, not required, to run an analysis outside its normal annual cycle (Section 1024.17(f)(1)(ii)). Send them the Board of Equalization or State Tax Commission decision and the county's corrected bill and ask; you have nothing to lose, and the annual analysis will catch it eventually either way.

If your case ran all the way to the State Tax Commission and straddled a reassessment cycle, do not assume your servicer is watching the docket. Nobody in the escrow department is tracking Missouri county board calendars for you. The corrected bill from the county collector is the document that actually moves your payment, so keep the decision and the revised bill together and send both the moment they arrive.

Key Counties

The highest-volume appeal jurisdictions in Missouri are St. Louis County, Jackson County, St. Charles County, Greene County, and Clay County. One quirk worth flagging before you file: St. Louis City is legally independent of St. Louis County, with its own assessor and its own Board of Equalization, despite the shared name. If your mailing address says St. Louis, confirm which of the two you are actually in before you file, since sending your appeal to the wrong office adds a delay on top of the escrow gap this article is already about. The statewide second-Monday-in-July deadline and the RESPA rules apply everywhere, but forms, portals, and local hearing practice differ by county, so verify procedure with your specific assessor's office before filing.

FAQ