Kisumu man loses parcels of land over wife's unpaid Sh3m loan

A Kisumu man has been dealt a huge blow after the Lands and Environment court gave the Kenya Women Finance Trust the greenlight to sell his parcel of land over a Sh3 million loan.

The loan was reportedly taken by Gabriel Otieno’s wife for her business.

In order for Gabriel’s wife to secure the loan, she had to surrender title deeds for their eight parcels of land as security.

Otieno had moved to court in an attempt to retrieve the title deeds and stop KWFT from exercising power of sale on his parcels of land after his wife had failed to comply with KWFT’s loan repayment demands.

During the proceedings, the court had heard that KWFT had demanded to put the parcels of land for sale upon their failure to comply with a notice demanding payments of Sh821, 609.

Otieno however claimed that the title deeds were submitted without his consent and demanded that the eight parcels of land be given back to him. He had also questioned how some notices were served.

KWFT told the court that the respondents failed to respond to the notices they had been served with.

In his ruling however, Justice Kibunjia said that Otieno did not dispute the address attributed to him and the issue of whether or not he received the notices.

“That as the Appellant has not disputed the address attributed to him, the issue of whether or not he indeed received the notices is an issue to be pursued during the hearing of the main suit, which is still pending in the lower court,” read the ruling in part.

Justice Stephen Kibunjia said that the evidence brought by Otieno showed that the loan given to his wife Birter Nyaboke was yet to be cleared and it was only fair and just if the borrower and the guarantor met the demands of their lender.

The court gave KWFT the go ahead to continue with the sale of the land.