For the first time in Kenya, East Africa, Land owners will from next month (April 2019), be able to register their properties in a record 12 day time span, a far cry from the current 73 days. This development according to Business Daily Africa, was announced by Lands secretary Farida Karoney on Wednesday, citing the efficiency that comes with automation of records.
Farida Karoney
The Lands Secretary also added that the The Lands ministry will start dry runs on the Lands Information Management System this Friday (the 15th of March 2019), before it goes live from April 1st 2019, adding that this will help digitise most of the manual systems in property registration process.
“We have interrogated the systems, we want to see what we need to do to reduce that number (of days for property registration). We have managed to look at processes we can eliminate and merge. We think we will bring that to 12 days,” Ms Karoney further told reporters in Nairobi.
Currently, it takes land developers as well as land owners nine (9) processes in order for them to be able to register properties. These nine (9) processes are largely very time consuming manual systems that force land developers and land owners looking to register property, to move from office to office.
The nine (9) processes include Title search which takes three days, Land rent clearance ( which takes 19 days), Clearance of land rates (which takes five days), Consent to transfer clearance (which takes nine days) and Requisition of file valuation (which takes four days), the Ministry says.
The other processes are site visits and reporting (which takes 20 days), registration of title (which takes five days), payment of stamp duty (which takes four days) and endorsement and assessment of the deal (which takes four days).
Of all the processes mentioned, Clearance of rent and Rates as requisition of file valuation are the only procedures that are fully done online, while search of title, consent to transfer, title registration, payment of stamp duty and assessment and endorsement of the deal are only partially digitised.
The rest of the procedures involved however, are still manual.
The ministry plans to reduce the procedures into three steps to save time and costs involved in registering land.
Application for land rent clearance, consent to transfer and valuation of stamp duty will be grouped into one procedure, taking a maximum of just five days, while site visits and report writing will take a maximum of seven days and title registration five days as well. The last two, will complete the registration process, Ms Karoney said.
Have you ever tried to register land in Kenya? What was your experience like and are you pleased with this new development?
