Audio By Vocalize
Land is increasingly becoming scarce annually due to the various new frontiers of utilisation. [Courtesy]
There has been a surge in land transactions in Kenya. I have said on this forum before that land is becoming the riskiest venture in Kenya. This fact has been aggravated by a lot of factors. First, there is a view that the Supreme Court, in its several decisions, has not settled the law on the scope of due diligence when it comes to the actual practice. There are several structural problems with the threshold the Supreme Court sets; the question of how far a buyer can go in terms of investigating the root of title.
Further, what is the liability ascribable to the land registrars-those with the mandate to ensure titles and records attendant to them are above board. The decisions of the Apex Court have placed a heavier burden on the buyer and has left the state, through land registries, to enjoy a certain level of recklessness in handling land titles on the cover that the buyer has to do his job.
Secondly, land as the main factor of production upon which our social and economic life revolves, is increasingly becoming scarce annually due to the various new utilisation frontiers both in the rural and urban settings. Due to this, land fraud is inevitable due to the competition and the premium on it especially in urban areas.
