Municipal coercive collection in Peru: what happens if you don't pay property tax or arbitrios

A separate chapter, inside the same law

If you’ve already read one of this site’s pages on what happens when Indecopi, Sunafil, or the SBS don’t get paid a fine, you know all three use Law No. 26979. Your municipality also uses it to collect overdue property tax or arbitrios — but not the same chapter. Chapter III of that law (articles 24 through 40) applies exclusively to Local Governments’ tax obligations, with its own rules that are, in some ways, more limited than what other entities have, and in others, more favorable to you.

When the debt becomes collectible

Not every overdue property tax or arbitrios bill goes straight to coercive collection. The debt becomes collectible when the Determination Resolution (or Fine Resolution) was properly notified and wasn’t challenged within the legal deadline, when a claim or appeal was already resolved against you, or when it’s a Payment Order issued and notified under the Tax Code.

The 7 business days that actually count

Once the debt reaches the enforcement officer, they notify the Coercive-Collection Order, meeting the same requirements the law sets for any other entity. From that notification, you have seven (7) business days to pay the full amount before the officer can impose a precautionary measure.

Before those 7 days: what your municipality can NOT do

This is the biggest difference from Indecopi or Sunafil. While those 7 days are still running, a municipality’s enforcement officer can only impose one precautionary measure: the seizure in the form of an information-intervention. It cannot preemptively freeze your accounts or assets before that deadline passes. The law also expressly bars it from applying articles 56, 57, and 58 of the Tax Code — more aggressive collection tools available to other tax administrations.

If the 7 days pass: the four forms of seizure

Once the deadline passes without payment, the officer can use any of these measures:

• Garnishment — of funds, securities, and accounts that banks or other third parties hold in your name.
• Registry lien — liens registered in the public registry on real estate or vehicles.
• Intervention — in a business’s collections, information, or management.
• Deposit or sequestration — of movable property, for eventual auction.

The debt grows — and the interest rate depends on your district

Here’s something most people don’t know: the Tax Code lets each municipality set its own moratory interest rate (TIM) by municipal ordinance — there’s no single nationwide rate for property tax or arbitrios the way there is for Sunat debt. The only limit is that a municipality’s TIM can’t exceed the one Sunat sets. That means if you’ve moved districts, or you compare your case to someone else’s in a different municipality, the rate applied to you can differ — check your own municipality’s current ordinance rather than assuming a generic figure.

Filing a timely claim does stop the collection — unlike other cases

In this site’s pages on Indecopi or Sunat, suing in court doesn’t automatically stop coercive collection. With municipal tax debt, the rule is different and more favorable: if you file, within the legal deadline, a claim, an appeal to the Provincial Municipality, an appeal to the Tax Court, or an administrative lawsuit that remains pending, the officer is required to suspend the procedure while it’s resolved.

There’s also an exceptional case for Payment Orders: if circumstances show the collection could be improper, you can file a claim without paying first, as long as you do it within 20 business days of that Payment Order being notified.

Small debts: your municipality isn’t required to chase them right away

If starting the coercive procedure would cost more than it would recover, the municipality can choose not to start it yet — but it keeps the right to bundle that debt with future debts of yours and collect them together later. Not being billed for a small arbitrios charge this year doesn’t mean the debt disappeared.

Property tax vs. arbitrios: the same collection track, two different taxes

Property tax and arbitrios are different taxes — property tax taxes owning the property; arbitrios are fees for services like public cleaning, parks and gardens, or serenazgo (municipal security patrols) — but both are municipal tax debts, so both get collected coercively under this same Chapter III of Law No. 26979 once they’re unpaid and collectible.

Check your case

If what you received is an orden de pago, a resolución de determinación or a resolución de ejecución coactiva, Property tax and arbitrios: what can I challenge? tells you whether it can be challenged, before whom, within what deadline and whether you must pay first.