The new number was $1.8 million. I stared at the assessment for a long time because our entire property had been worth less than half that a year earlier. I called the county and asked why the value had changed so dramatically. The woman on the phone paused before saying, “The rezoning includes the parcel you’re sitting on.”
I called my attorney immediately. She asked whether my husband had ever mentioned the property behind our house, and I said no. She told me to pull the original deed. When I found it, the parcel behind the house wasn’t included in the deed to my husband at all. It was held separately — in my name, from before we were married.
Then she asked me to check the date of the rezoning request. It had been filed four months before my husband told me to “take the house.” His brother’s name was on the application, and the proposal showed exactly what they planned to build behind us. My attorney looked at the paperwork and said, “He wasn’t giving you the house. He was trying to make sure you didn’t realize what the land was worth.”
