Apartment Owners to Obtain Title Deeds from January

Kenyan apartment owners will receive title deeds for their units starting in January 2024, three years after the Sectional Properties Act 2020 passed.

This follows the signing of a deal between the State, the Law Society of Kenya, and the Kenya Bankers Association to unlock the stalled implementation of the Act.

According to Lands and Physical Planning Cabinet Secretary Zack Njeru, the implementation of the law, which was enacted in December 2020 has been hindered by various challenges, including the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, the signing of the agreement is expected to resolve the issues, with every compliant homeowner expected to obtain an apartment title deed for their property in the next six months.

“The agreement aims to address the challenges faced over the last three years in terms of registering, selling, and obtaining long-term leases for sectional properties,” Mr. Njeru said.

The sectional property titles, according to Principal Secretary for Lands and Physical Planning Generali Nixon Korir, will be derived from coordinates in the house which will be recorded by a surveyor.

“A surveyor will pick coordinates from the unit and those coordinates will form a unique identifier which will be the title number,” Mr. Korir said.

Sectional unit boundaries are described by referencing floors, walls, and ceilings. Load-bearing walls determine the interior finishing material—like plaster, paneling, or flooring. Doors and windows are typically part of a unit unless the sectional plan states otherwise.

The Sectional Properties Act 2020 and the Land Registration Act, 2012 require that all sectional plans submitted for registration be geo-referenced. They should indicate the parcel number, units’ numbers and rough floor area of each unit.

For every unit, it will have to be signed by the proprietor and sealed by the Director of Surveys, clearly indicating the user of the unit.

The Sectional Properties Act 2020, which came into effect on December 11, 2020, repealed the Sectional Properties Act of 1987 by providing for the division of buildings into units owned by individuals, among other revolutionary provisions.

The law, for example, bars property developers from putting up additional units on the same plot where already-sold blocks of apartments stand. This will prevent incidents where developers dupe buyers about the availability of open spaces, only for them to later build homes on the spaces.

The Act also provides for the issuance of title deeds for common property, which will be jointly owned by the owners of the individual units.

Homeowners will be issued with certificates specifying their share in the common property – meaning such property cannot be auctioned without their consent.

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Under the new law, developers will be required to register each of the apartment plans for all housing units shown on the plans to correlate both the existing structures and the approved building plans.

With an agreement in place, apartment unit owners can use their sectional titles as collateral for loans. This makes it much easier to sell or purchase a unit, backed by a document of ownership.

Previously, apartment owners were unable to acquire title deeds for their units. This was due to developers retaining the original title even after selling the units, as it was legally impossible to subdivide common property.

This exposed investors to the risk of fraud and loss of property in instances where developers would build on land whose title was held by money-lending entities.

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