Kenya manages to reduce days to register a property as cost still remains high

(Courtesy)

Following a reduction in property registration time by a number of African countries, Kenya, has followed suit and managed to reduce the number of days to register commercial property from about 70 to 60 in the period that run between year 2012 and 2017.

According to the data from Centre for African Housing Finance (CAHF) annual housing yearbook, in most African countries the number of days it takes to register commercial property for African countries between 2012 and 2017 reduced to its lowest where in west African countries, it took about 230 days to register commercial property as of 2017, an improvement of just 15 days from 2012.

In the East African region, most countries had the shortest time to register property where in Sudan and Rwanda for instance, it takes 10 days and about 12 days respectively.

In terms of cost, as of 2017, Cameroon retained the highest cost to register commercial property which is 22% of property value similar to 2012.

“In most African countries, it costs between 10 to 15% of property value to register commercial property,” The report says.

However, in countries such as Ghana, Rwanda, Sudan, Burundi, Malawi and others, it costs less than 5% of property value.

“In Rwanda it costs nothing to register property while in Egypt and Ghana it costs 1% and 2% respectively,” the report says.

However, for Kenya alongside a few other African countries like South Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya, the cost of registering commercial property has gone up.