@a4 please go read the Ndungu report. If I tell you you will start another long story.

It was very categorical that what the commissioner of lands did was illegal.

You cannot usurp land for personal use. You acquire land for gov't for the good of the nation.

So for whatever reason, the best land report that was ever created in this country, recommended that the fellows involved in South B be prosecuted.

This report was thrown in the dustbin and Kenyans will suffer for it.

Since I'm not a brilliant legal mind like you, I will have to accept that those guys knew what they were talking about.

You cannot cloak personal greed in the beautiful dress of compulsory acquisition of land for the good of Kenya.

No problem a4 but on matters land law, no lawyer can be me.


Alienation of Public Land and the Power to do So

Under the law, it is only the President who has the right to allocate unalienated government lands, although he can delegate limited powers to the Commissioner of Lands. Yet even the President cannot exercise his powers without paying regard to the public interest.


Abuse of presidential discretion in apportioning land .Successive Commissioners of Lands, acting in excess of the legal power vested in that office, had made direct grants of unallocated land to individuals and companies without written authority of the President.



Use of forged letters and documents

The Commission found that forged letters and documents
were used to illegally allocate land. Further, land that had
been acquired compulsorily for public use was then illegally
allocated through forged letters and documents. Those
allocated such land would later sell it to third parties, some
of whom developed it.


Recommendations on illegal allocation of urban lands
The Commission recommended that:
• Where public utility land had been allocated,
such allocation should be nullified and the land
repossessed and restored to the public use for which it had been reserved.
• Where land set aside to serve as road reserves had been illegally allocated, such land should be repossessed and restored to public use even if the land had since been developed. Developments on such lands should therefore be demolished without exception.

On the Issue of having a Title Deed after land was acquired illegally

The Commission observed a number of factors that render a land title illegal. One of these is when a title is issued for a piece of land which is not legally available for allocation.



That report was very clear.

So if there is any Architect, Conveyancing Lawyer, Property Valuer who pretends they don't know what it is talking about, then that person is professinally negligent.

And should be sued with abandon.

Links to Ndungu Report

http://www.africog.org/reports/mission_impossible_ndungu_report.pdf

Short form of Ndungu Report

Other Summary of Report

Go to page 24 of the first link

Those were the recommendations of the Ndungu commission on what is affecting the guys in South B.

Unfortunately for them as it stands that report has not been implemented. So they stand to lose everything and I mean everything.

So its a catch 22 situation.

If the report is implemented, they stand to lose some of their money as they will be required to pay the current market rates of the undeveloped land.

If it is not implemented, they have to pray that Sonko is still Senator and Uhuru is still president.

Moral of the story, Buy land in Kenya wisely. If ndungu report is not implemented you may be buying fake land. If it is implemented, you may be forced to pay more than what you paid for it.

@alma, i have checked it. I believe if Ndungu did his report in the era of the internet/google search, he would have discovered how other countries resolve such and would have advised differently. Land is such an important resource to be left for a commission to decide on,.It should be an issue of parliamentary debates,bills,which turn into law and various research bodies such as the national land commission.

Govt cant just demolish houses coz lawyer Paul Ndungu and @alma recommends it. This should be a matter of parliamentary debate whereby all dissenting opinions such as mine are heard then the bets decision takes over.

If kevivapi residents can prove that president/lands commissioner approved the appropriation, then they are home and dry. If the appropriations were done by persons other than president and lands commissioner, then there is some chance of loosing the case.

i believe the buyers did searches at the land registry and were satisfied . Citizens simply have no other way to ascertain land ownership other than official land search at the registry. If this is altered, then citizens cant be blamed for buying the said lands.

if the kevivapi residents swarmed on govt land and allocated themselves like they do on slums, then demolition is a remedy. If commissioner of lands appropriated the land from govt to private hands, then the residents are not to blame since at the time , commissioner of lands was the law in matters land and the custodian of the registry.

@alma, how else was the commissioner of lands supposed to appropriate the land? If there were no intricate laws and the laws at that time gave him the powers/leeway to do as he wished, then we can say land reforms to improve this is what is needed since assuming all commissioners of land are angels surely got the country where it is now.

@alma, forests should not be appropriated. A law/regulation to determine what is unutilised idle land should be developed . For example, kevivapi land to me has all the hallmarks of unutilised idle govt land/grasslands. Ngong forest is utilized as a forest with its bio diversity advantages hence not in the league of kevivapi land.

The issue of bell vs moi is again different in that this is about 2 private owners. in the kevivapi land, its about idle govt land moving to public hands hence different.

in bell vs moi, its about private land so the courts arbitrate and award to the rightful owner.

am not supporting anybody , am just trying to understand why /how house owners are supposed to know it all even when the govt land registry says the one selling to them land is the rightful owner. surely,for govt to earn its respect from its citizens, then we all have to agree that whatever the outcome of a land search has to be valid or just disagree and live like kenya is a banana republic.

House owners are supposed to do a proper search. They did not.

The banks are supposed to do a proper search. They did not.

The scammers at Ardhi house can even create fake beacons. Ask the mavoko fellows.

But a proper search would reveal the proper property owner. While the house owner cannot be expected to know a proper title from a fake one, the banks should.

why in the hell do they hire valuers for?

I can tell you the number of tubrotis with fake details that I've seen in my life would shock you. You just need honest professionals and things like this would never happen.

But you can sue in the meantime or forever hold on to a property that no one will ever buy from you. The total asset value of Diamong Estate is now 0 kenya shillings. No one will buy from them.

Let me give you free advise on how to conduct a proper search.

Go all the way to the original owners of the land. Please take that seriously. If all you found was alma was the owner of the land, then that was not a search, that was a PERUSAL of land records.

Go back to the first time it was ever conveyanced.

If you see it was formerly a forest, run. If you see it was formerly Wilson Airport, don't lie to your kids that the house will be used to pay their university in the US.

Some of this things are just common sense.

If they had done a proper search they would have found that the land they were sold never left the hands of Kevevapi.

Just because 80% of Valuers are corrupt does not mean that you shouldn't do a proper search for yourself.

I would like you again to stop saying that the land was legally transferred. Obviously this is not the case as the owner of the land has said his land was stolen by the former commisioner of lands. That is just the fact.

@realtreaty, the kevevapi land issue is different form city council open space land grab. In city council situation, land was designated for open spaces,play grounds schools etc through the planning process. This designation happens when a private land owner applies for land subdivision whereby he is compelled to give land for such uses by the city council planning department. This space can only be used for the set land use purposes.

In the kevevapi land, this is idle, unutilised govt land, hundreds of acres, that is usually under lands commission or commissioner of lands who under his powers, can alienate the land to private individuals if he so wishes.
The idel , unutilised land, in the kevevapi issue, was not being utilised for any purpose at the time of land alienation.

The city council lands, set aside for playgrounds,schools etc were in most instances private lands acquired by city council for this purpose, and are usually not in hundreds of acres in size.

Where these have been grabbed, its a good idea to acquire them, including demolition of the buildings on them since these lands are to be used when vacant by the surrounding community, for purposes set.

For example, assume @realtreaty owns 100 acres in Buruburu and would like to subdivide. City council then compels @realtreaty to cede 10% of the 100 acres for a school, playground, church etc then sell of the other 90%.
When subsequent council govt comes in and grabs the 10% set aside for public space, now thats GRABBING land and demolition is a remedy since the people surrounding the land can only benefit when the land is vacant for a field etc .

IN kevevapi land, the land initially belongs to kenyans under ministry of lands and not @realtreaty's personal land as in the case of county land.
In such cases, the lands commissioner has the powers to alienate the land and alocate @realtreaty the land .

When @realtreaty is given the land, the council then compels @realtreaty to cede come land for a school , playground etc for community use. This land ceded is what should be protected from GRABBING.

a4 I'm really starting to doubt if you have clean hands in this matter.

Even when supporting the properties to stay which is a reasonable argument since no one here wishes harm on others, you really have to be truthful in your arguments.

You see, now because of guys like you, these guys are going to take another case to court. One that claims they have legit titles. Based on that they will demand kevevapi stops demolishing their land.

Unfortunately, kevavapi will simply show they never sold the land. So their case will be mute and they shall be removed.

The case they should take is suing whoever sold them the property. Then let whoever sold the property prove their titles are valid. Only then will the truth come out.

A truth that you are trying to evade.

The owners of the land are not the gov't of Kenya. You can twist it as much as you wish. It is not the gov't of Kenya. It is Kevevapi. If the directors of Kevevapi do not have any documentation to show that they sold the land, they will be in jail.

But we don't want them in jail for something they never did,do we?

The Ndungu commission identified this property as grabbed land. Mr. Ndungu himself was on TV saying categorically that the land was in his report as grabbed land.

So who do we believe, you the architect who has confessed that you don't know how land searches are done, or the true owners of the property who say it was grabbed by someone and his girlfriend?

Stop lying here as your name is on the line.

That land was never supposed to have been sold. It was. The people who stole it are the ones who should be in court.

You can't change facts with many many words.