Government Spokesperson Claims Seniors Are Losing Homes Over Unpaid Taxes, but Official Data Disputes This

On Tuesday, May 5, Government Spokesperson Mara Sedini called on Congress to expedite the processing of the «National Reconstruction» project, which is currently under urgent consideration in the Chamber of Deputies.

During her remarks at the Palacio de La Moneda, Sedini emphasized that «the reconstruction project is not for political maneuvering but rather a response to an urgent need.»

She proceeded to present several statistics to support this urgency: «Today there are people unemployed. Small businesses are failing every day. Seniors are losing their homes because they cannot pay property taxes. We must respond to them,» Sedini affirmed.

However, this last claim garnered attention, as just a few months prior, investigative media outlet Ciper Chile published a report addressing this issue during the campaign of then-candidate Kast, who proposed eliminating property taxes.

Ciper Chile reacted to Mara Sedini’s statements, recalling that «in 2025, Ciper confirmed with official data that it is not true that seniors are losing their homes for this reason.»

According to their publication dated December 10, 2025, Ciper «requested from the General Treasury of the Republic (TGR) the list of properties seized and auctioned from 2020 to 2025. According to this data, during this period, none of the homes that entered the auction process for unpaid property taxes were actually sold, whether belonging to seniors or other property owners.»

«Records from the TGR indicate that in these nearly six years, only five vacant lots were auctioned off, located in three regions, all of which were repurchased by their original owners,» the report adds, which you can read in full here.