BY SAM ALFAN.
Some 103 home owners at Woodley estate in Nairobi have suffered a major setback after the High Court ordered the Registrar of Titles to cancel their leases because they obtained the houses illegally.
This is after Environment and Land Court judge Samson Okongo declared Woodley Estate a public utility, which had been illegally transferred for private use and should be repossessed by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
Justice Okong’o ruled that the process of granting the lease of the Multi-milllion property was fundamentally flawed and therefore illegal.
“It is my finding that the title the defendant acquired from the council was nullity. The defendant does not therefore have a valid title over the suit property”, ruled the judge.
He added that a lease that was a product of an illegal process was invalid, null and void and the home owners, who have fought over the years to keep the houses, did not lawfully acquire the houses.
The Estate comprising of 103 properties was originally owned by the Nairobi City Council under a grant to the council for purposes of erecting rental dwelling houses for residents.
The defunct Council, which was then ran by a Commission purported to allocate the houses to various persons at a premium of Sh1.1 million. But none of the home owners paid a cent.
The crafty transactions dates back to 1992 when the council built some 210 houses.
Formerly known as Joseph Kang’ethe estate, it was planned and developed as a housing facility, complete with a primary school, playing grounds, public gardens and a shopping centre.
The 34.63-hectare property was estimated then to be worth Sh700 million.
Documents filed in court finger council officials who were entrusted with safeguarding the city’s properties in 1992.
The then director of city planning changed the development plan, which then ushered in the subsequent illegal sale of the spaces and houses in the estate.
Most of the registered owners, KACC said, have not paid a cent to the Nairobi city council, which initially owned the estate. The houses, the commission said, were illegally disposed of, in breach of statutory provisions governing the sale of council property.
The council, on its part, has maintained that the estate has never been up for sale. The court heard that former county clerk JM Mbugua had on September 14, 1999 nullified the sale and issued a public notice.
But attempts to recover the houses through resolution revoking the sale, have been unsuccesful.
