What ministerial guidelines on renewal of land leases mean

Lands and Physical Planning Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi at his office at Ardhi House in Nairobi on June 15, 2017. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The recently issued ministerial guidelines therefore help unlock the processing of leases.

  • They oblige government to issue notices of expiry to lessees, they clarify the application process, factors to be considered and timelines for renewal.

In Kenya, those with registered private land hold either freehold or leasehold interests. A freehold interest is for an unlimited period and is the kind held by Kenyans in most rural areas. They are easily managed and inherited.

A leasehold interest is held for a defined period after which the land reverts to the person who granted the lease. Most leasehold interests are found in urban areas. But many leases were granted by the colonial government to promote Kenya’s agriculture and for religious purposes in various counties. Many of these have since been passed on to local people and companies.

Leases in Kenya have been routinely issued for 33, 66, 99, 999 and 9,999 years. All leases of terms greater than 99 years held by non-citizens were, however, automatically converted to 99 years on the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution.

GROSS IRREGULARITIES

The lack of a clear framework to guide lease renewals, failure by some leaseholders to closely watch expiry dates, high land values and institutional inefficiency ended up driving gross irregularities. And since there was no clarity in the law, it was easy for expiring leases to be allocated to other people while original holders continued to hold onto their old documents.

This explains situations where some leaseholders would be surprised to find people landing on their properties waving new leasehold documents and ordering them out.

But the 2012 Land Act provided clarity to this matter and allowed leaseholders who are Kenya citizens to enjoy pre-emptive rights if they were still keen to retain the lease provided that the County or National governments didn’t require the land for any public purpose.

But for the provision to be effected, statutory regulations to operate it were needed. These regulations haven’t been developed since the law came into effect in 2012.

A task force has been working on such regulations since early this year.

Therefore, in the absence of the regulations, shrewd operatives continued to prey on expiring leases and some Kenyans found themselves faced with evictions they couldn’t comprehend, leading to a national outcry after a few forced evictions were conducted by such operatives particularly in Nairobi.

PLACE MORATORIUM

In trying to protect leaseholders, the Cabinet placed a moratorium on the processing of leases in December last year. This measure, unfortunately, placed barriers in the processing of all types of leases, even those from subdivisions, and dealt a blow to the real estate industry and economy.

The recently issued ministerial guidelines therefore help unlock the processing of leases. They oblige government to issue notices of expiry to lessees, they clarify the application process, factors to be considered and timelines for renewal.