Land-buying Companies in Kenya to Pay a Sh500 Million License Fee in Proposed Law

Kirinyaga Central MP Joseph Gitari has drafted a new bill that seeks to compel land-buying companies to deposit Sh500 million as license fees before they are cleared for registration.

The proposed law seeks to establish an agency that would regulate the proliferation and activities of all land-buying companies in the country in a bid to protect investors from fraud.

“The Bill will contain provisions that require land-buying companies to register with a regulator wherein such a company will deposit Sh500 million as a license fee,” said Gitari.

Further, the bill contains provisions empowering the regulator to impose a fine of up to Sh5 million for non-compliance by the land-buying companies.

Gitari has written to the National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula seeking clearance to introduce a private member’s Bill to regulate the activities of real estate companies.

“The principal object of the Bill is to regulate the registration, licensing of land-buying companies and to protect the interest of persons who purchase land from a land-buying company,” Gitari said in a letter dated February 14th.

The proposed bill comes in the wake of several petitions to Parliament by Kenyans who lost their money to fraudsters running land investment companies.

The National Assembly’s Public Petitions Committee is currently handling a petition in which Cytonn Investments Management PLC is accused of misappropriating investors’ cash in one of its projects.

Increased cases of land fraud in the country prompted the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to appoint a 26-member special team of investigators with backgrounds in land matters to the Land Fraud Investigations Unit.