The majority of Kenyans who rent residential or commercial spaces do not sign lease agreements with their landlords. This is according to findings contained in the latest report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
The report dubbed as the Kenya Housing Survey 2023-2024by KNBS states that 71.8 per cent of all tenants in Kenya do not have a written lease agreement with their landlords while only 28.2 per cent have this document.
This implies that a majority of tenants in the country do not have specific lease terms that together with their landlords are bound by, and neither do they have a legal document to protect them or their landlord should the terms of their rentals change or get violated by either party.
According to KNBS, Kajiado County is the leading county in the country with the largest number of tenants who have legally binding leases. In Kajiado, 69.4 per cent of all tenants have leases with their landlords.
Kajiado is followed Taita Taveta with 50.2 per cent while Nairobi County comes a distant third with only 40.5 per cent of all tenants having legally binding leases.
The report further showed that the rental market continues to dominate the real estate sector. For instance, the KNBS report shows that 77.1 per cent of rental properties is made up of flats and apartments.
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The majority of these rental properties are located in Nairobi County, Kiambu County and Kajiado County. On the other hand, Kwale County, Lamu County and Taita Taveta County and Kilifi have the least rental properties in Kenya.
In the same vein, 23.3 per cent of residential properties in the market were three-bedroom flats or apartments. Two-bedroom flats or apartments make up 18.1 per cent of all residential properties and while maisonettes of four and above bedrooms come in at 12.2 per cent
