Buying land in Kenya is no easy feat. Many are the times Kenyans in the market to purchase land have been defrauded or found themselves paying more than they should thanks to dubious Land dealers.
In fact, talk to any land owner today and you’ll realize they all have at least one story regarding a suspicious moment when they were in search for a perfect land.
With these rising cases of land fraud, Kenyan legislators and the judiciary are making efforts to save Kenyans from losing millions of their hard earned cash.
In 2021, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations set up a Land Fraud Investigations Unit to deal with the rising number of fraudulent land cases.
Kirinyaga Central Member of Parliament Joseph Gitari has proposed a bill offering recourse and future protection for all land buyers in the country.
Gitari argues that the principal objective of the Bill is to regulate the legislation and licensing of the land buying companies and protect the interest of persons who purchase land from the said entities.
The legislator is asking the Government to set up an office of the Registrar of Lands Dealing Companies to oversee the registration and licensing of land-selling companies and facilitate deregistration of land-selling companies operating fraudulently.
He calls for all Land selling companies to declare publicly all their shareholders as well as set up physical accessible offices in a bid to weed out untraceable land dealers.
The Bill also proposes a deposit with the new regulatory body, in order to ensure that buyers can be compensated should they buy land that the land-selling company does not legitimately own. Those who are in breach of the set terms by the regulatory body will also have their licenses terminated.
Real Estate agencies have been most affected by the so called “briefcase” dealers and this has let to the formation of the Association of Real Estate Stakeholders in a bid to weed out unscrupulous persons posing as land dealers.
The association seeks to set up a code of conduct and a disciplinary committee to deal with rogue companies.