By Rawlings Otieno
City Council of Nairobi will auction property belonging to land rate defaulters.
Nairobi Town Clerk Roba Duba on Monday gave a 28-day window within which pending rates can be paid without penalties for defaulting.
“If the money would not have been paid, then will not hesitate to invoke the laws governing rates that empowers us to auction the premises or residential houses,” vowed Mr Duba.
He explained how the council has been unable provide the expected services due to non-payment of rates which he termed a major revenue stream for the local authority.
waiver window
Duba at the same time issued a notice of waiver period for the unpaid fees.
Speaking during a press briefing in Nairobi on Monday, the city boss warned over 2000 properties that didn’t use waiver window to clear debts of auction once the courts finalise the cases.
Some investors in real estate play hide-and-seek with local authorities over payment of land rates.
The property owners often ignore letters from municipalities reminding them to pay up the annual duty. They even ignore notices published in the media in partial waiver of interest on land rates. The period for the waiver this year ends on August 6.
Land rates are annual levies paid to local authorities by property owners as provided in the Valuation for Rating Act.
However, schools, hospitals, morgues, churches, cemeteries, national and game parks and charitable institutions are exempted from the duty.
Civic bodies use the annual tariffs as their revenue towards improving services within their jurisdictions.Banks, mortgage firms and financiers that extend loans to property owners without confirming whether rates were paid on property issued as security stand accused of encouraging defaulters.
There are also people or companies that buy land without confirming whether sellers settled the rates before transferring property to them.
Failure to obtain a land rates clearance certificate from local authorities means the buyer inherits the accrued debt from the previous owner.
The council intends to collect at least Sh 10 billion within waiver period, failure to which, properties will be auctioned.
Last year, the council set out to collect Sh1.5billion but managed only Sh800million with many defaulters ignoring the warnings and notices.
