Some rogue land brokers and land selling companies connive with unscrupulous land registry staff to concoct land search results in order to fleece unsuspecting honest investors. You can mitigate this risk or avoid it altogether.
Correct search results and being wrong? This is paradoxical but thinkable here in Kenya. There are many properties on offer out there. You have your Ksh 500,000 or Ksh 1 million or Ksh 2M. Name it. You want to buy a plot or a farm. You come across many land advertisements online and on print media. They come with free site visits, drinks en route and nyama choma for lunch. You have a free pen and note pad to note the plots that interest you.
After a daylong tour, you are taken back to the company offices where you are asked to book properties that you like. You ask to see title deeds for the properties and they come in trays. Then you are advised not to commit a penny before doing a search at the land registry. This gives you a lot of confidence. After all, no one in their right mind can ask you to double check what they are sure isn’t legitimate. Right?
Another offer comes: we can help you to get the search done in record time because of our connections. Who doesn’t know that getting a lot of things done in Kenya is all about ‘technical know who?’ Because you have money and you don’t want to waste it or you have few days of leave or vacation if you traveled from abroad, you bite the bait. You want the search out soon so that you can conclude the transaction. Sometimes, the company or broker can be so benevolent and offer to escort you to the registry to fast track the process. Boom! The such results are out. The search certificate confirms that the company/individual is the rightful owner of the property.
What next? Get into agreement, pay and sign requisite documents and await title deed transfer. You then proceed to fence your plot. Since you are not ready to develop, you decide to plant maize or beans to show that you are around. You have a bumper harvest in season one and get motivated to go for the second season before you get ready to construct. Just as you are weeding your beans and everything is promising, a gang descends on your plot, brings down the fence and destroys your crops. Enraged, you produce your documents claiming ownership of the plot. Another gentleman or lady produces counter documents. Solomonic wisdom is needed here. Who is the rightful owner of the baby? You probably end up in court and after years of agony and acrimony, you lose the case and your millions of shillings go down the drain in plain sight.
Please be advised that there are cartels at various land registries that work in cahoots with land vendors and brokers. The most effective strategy to beat them is not to inform the vendors or the brokers when you will be doing the search. You can repeat the search even up to 3 times at different intervals. If you get the same results, there are high chances that it belongs to the person shown on the title. You can then proceed with the plot purchase process. Do not fall into the temptation of working so fast because the property is on high demand. Statistics show that 70% of rushed transactions end up being fraud of insurmountable magnitude.
