Beware: Land fraudsters selling land of deceased owners

Residents from Mwicuiri Settlement Scheme in Kieni, Nyeri County celebrate after they were issued with title deeds by Kieni MP Kanini Kega, on July 26, 2017. [Kibata Kihu/Standard]

Fraudsters have invented new tricks to steal land, including causing the dead to ‘come back to earth’ to seal land deals and then crawl back to the land of the dead.

In the new trend that has baffled legal experts, the fraudsters then sell the land to unsuspecting people and vanish into thin air after pocketing millions of shilling, leaving the buyers and the disinherited person(s) to battle it out in court. 

In one case, Justice Munyao Sila cancelled a title deed for land that had allegedly been sold by the original owner more than two decades after his death. The title was then used to secure a loan.

In the case in Kericho County, Nickson Kipkurui Korir was said to have acquired ownership of  Kericho/Cheborge/120 from Kipkoech Tele 25 years after his death. He then went to a bank and secured a loan of Sh1.2 million using the title deed as security.

Extra mile

In his judgement, Justice Sila Munyao noted that while it is not a legal obligation, there would have been no harm in the bank going an extra mile and “digging deeper into the title”. Had the bank done so, he said, it would probably have discovered that the title was no good.

“In fact, it is probably advisable to do so, given the fact that this country is notorious when it comes to land scams and land fraudsters have continuously been in the kitchen, creating new recipes for land con schemes,” said Mr Munyao.

He said it was advisable for any person wishing to deal with land to go beyond the legal obligation of conducting an official search and prod a little more to find out if the person has good title to the land.

According to court documents, Mr Korir registered himself as the proprietor of the land on March 8, 2012. Thereafter, he approached Consolidated Bank for a loan and offered the land as security.

Korir, however, failed to service the loan as agreed and the bank moved in to recover its money by sending agents to value the property for purposes of selling it. That is when Alice Chemutai Too, administrator of the property, decided to conduct a search and realised the land was registered in Korir’s name.

Ms Too sued Korir, the bank and office of the Attorney General, arguing that the property was transferred to Korir through fraud and illegal falsification of the register.

“She has averred that the 1st respondent (Korir) must have colluded with the Land Registrar (2nd respondent) to have the property transferred into his name and that false and/or forged documents must have been presented for registration,” read the judgement delivered in October 2015.

Too asked the court to order rectification of the register so that the title reflected the name of the deceased.

Consolidated Bank argued that no evidence was tabled that the bank was privy to any illegality as the search certificate confirmed the first respondent was the owner of the land.

It was submitted that the bank undertook due diligence by conducting a search and the court “ought not to set a precedent that is harmful to the economy which relies heavily on secured borrowing” by cancelling the charge.

“On the contrary, it is my view that it would be a dangerous precedent to set, if I were not to proceed to cancel the charge. It would mean that all a person needs to do is to fraudulently acquire a title, then proceed to charge it, and because of that charge, his fraudulent transactions will be sanitised,” said the judge.

Court proceedings

Neither Korir nor a representative of the Attorney General’s office showed up for the court proceedings.

“It does not need space science to bring one to the conclusion that the first respondent must have acquired registration of the suit property by way of fraud. He obviously could not have perpetrated the fraud on his own and he must have colluded with corrupt and morally deficient fellows in the land registry,” added the judge.

Munyao finally cancelled the title registered to Korir and consequently the loan acquired on it. He also ordered the register to be rectified and the land reverted to Mr Tele.