Congress will make new attempts to limit property tax increases

One of the issues that causes headaches among Colombians and sparks heated debate in public opinion every time it appears on the public agenda is undoubtedly the property tax, whether due to national government projects to change the rules of the game, moves by regional authorities, or people complaining about excessive increases in this tax, which is vital to municipal coffers.

This recently made the news after the Attorney General's Office and the Comptroller's Office revealed a few months ago that progress has only been made in 73 municipalities, representing 8,846,926 hectares (urban and rural areas) out of a total of 114 million hectares in the country, and that the area is still far from the 70% target.

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Considering that there are 1,102 municipalities in Colombia, the Comptroller's Office data shows that the progress is 6.62%, when, as previously stated, the goal for the next four years was to bring it above the aforementioned levels. It's worth remembering that the status of this indicator is crucial for property tax collection.

It should also be noted that whenever the land registry is updated, complaints are often filed, arguing that their property taxes are skyrocketing and seriously impacting their finances. For this reason, Congress is seeking to limit this tax by controlling improperly implemented updates.

A bill was filed with the Secretariat of the House of Representatives to establish limits and exceptions to the Unified Property Tax (UPT) under the principles of progressivity and efficiency to mitigate the economic impact of the cadastral update on taxpayers.

This initiative was authored by Congresswoman Alexandra Vásquez and has the support of representatives from the Liberal, Conservative, Green, Historical Pact, and U parties; all of whom pledged to support it and generate a debate that will facilitate its passage through the legislature.

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"We are introducing for the second time the bill that seeks to ensure that Colombians pay a fair property tax. We propose the implementation of differential and progressive rates, as well as the suspension of improper cadastral updates," he explained.

In the same vein, Representative Vásquez made an urgent call to Congress to schedule and debate the issue quickly in committees and plenary sessions, after warning a few weeks ago that a massive cadastral appraisal process is underway, which will cover 44.5% of Colombian territory and will have a significant impact on property taxes in 282 municipalities in 2026.

"The approval of this project is urgent because, starting next year, the country's land registry crisis will worsen with the massive updating of property appraisals in 282 municipalities, for which there are no contingency measures, further deepening the country's crisis. For this reason, I call on the national government to move forward with all these projects designed to benefit communities. For a fair property tax!" he added.

One of the most important points of the bill is that it also proposes giving the Superintendency of Notaries and Registry more tools, allowing it to order the temporary and permanent suspension of cadastral update processes in cases where violations of the public service provision regime for cadastral management are identified.

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Finally, the author recalled that favorable property tax growth limits were created in 2019 as a result of the updating of cadastral appraisals through the new Multipurpose Cadastre. However, these limits proved ineffective and led to exaggerated increases in different parts of the country, such as Soacha, Cali, Yopal, Santander, Boyacá, and Antioquia.

"The goal of this bill is to alleviate the impact on the wallets of those who may be affected by the increase in the Unified Property Tax due to the cadastral update process and the increase in the arrears of cadastral appraisals," he concluded.