Protect Your Investment: What You Need to Know Before Buying Land in Kenya
Essential Guide on How to Verify/Check the Land You are about to Buy
Many are times we get calls from our clients who want to buy land/property asking us to guide them on what to look out for. As lawyers in Kikuyu, one of the prime areas, we often find our clients required to be well-informed before making their investments in land. At MUREN Advocates, we normally advise our clients to Investigate the Title. We thus saw the need to do an article on this important topic. As an investor, you may want to buy land to live with your family, build a rental property or use it for other businesses. However, you may not know where to start while finding out more about the land, thus, this article may assist you to know everything about the land you are about to buy.
To know get all information about the land you are about to buy, we normally go for investigation of the title. Investigating a title is simply done to make sure that the buyer gets to know everything about the land/property before purchasing. This will ensure that the buyer does not end up buying land that has problems or does not exist. At MUREN Advocates, we have saved quite a number of our clients from losing money. We advised the clients not to buy lands that did not pass the test of the three methods listed below. We all know of fraud/cons done to buyers hence a good investigation of the Title document (be it Title Deed, Certificate of lease, etc.) will assist the buyer not to be conned/cheated/defrauded while buying.
There are three methods of investigating the title we recommend at MUREN Advocates. The methods are searches, conducting pre-contract inquiries and the last one is requisitions.
(a) Searches. Searches are enquiries done in the government departments to check ownership of the land and any other issue concerning the land available in government records. Such issues may affect the buyer after buying the land hence important to know.
Such searches will let the buyer know the person registered as the owner, whether the property was used to secure a loan and if the loan was paid, and any other issues about the land. We will later do an article on where such searches are conducted.
(b) Pre-Contract Inquiries. This method helps the buyer to know about the physical condition of the land, that is, is it good/okay for him as the buyer? It’s thus simply an inspection of the property and raising any areas that may require clarification.
The buyer will thus visit the land to see if it suits them, looks at the boundaries/beacons, any buildings or anything else located in the land, how the area looks like, etc. This is the point where maybe as a buyer you can go with the surveyor to know if it’s the correct size or valuer to be told whether the price is okay. At MUREN Advocates, we normally accompany our clients for such inspections to guide and pinpoint to our clients the areas to be on the lookout for. Remember, you may have been told about the land but when you get to the ground, you find for example it’s probably next to a river which means in the rainy season it will flood. You can also find the land is slopy hence not good for the project you want to invest in. Pre-contract inquiries/inspection of the land is thus important for a buyer
(c) Requisitions. These are questions that the buyer asks the seller relating to the Title after the buyer looks at the Title document.
For example, where names of the seller differ in the National ID & The Title Deed. The seller may have after registering the property in their name, added another name to their National Identity Card. That can happen such as when they were baptized and hence given another name by their religion. So a person who was earlier known as Kariuki Shikuku now becomes Abraham Kariuki Shikuku. Such are the questions that the buyer may ask to be explained. The buyer thus asks questions arising from looking at and inspecting the Title.
In summary, investigating the title which comprises searches, pre-contract enquiries and requisitions is quite important for every land buyer. As lawyers in Kikuyu area, these are some important methods we advise our clients buying the land in this area to use to find all the information about the land before signing an agreement to buy. For further advice or questions, you can reach us at info@murenlaw.com or call/WhatsApp us via 0702371686.