Apartment Title Deeds: Apartment buyers in Kenya can now finally acquire title deeds. This is after President Uhuru Kenyatta approved the law on sectional property ownership that will now provide leeway for the owners to acquire their own titles.
This is set to allow home owners who would wish to use their titles as loan securities the chance to do so. It will also end avenues that wayward developers use to defraud home buyers.
According to a report that appeared in The Standard, the new law bars developers from constructing additional buildings after selling some units following the review of the Sectional Properties Act of 1987.
The new Sectional Properties Act of 2019 that provides for the division of buildings into units to be owned by individual proprietors repeals the Sectional Properties Act of 1987. While the Sectional Property Act of 1987 also provided for division of buildings into units to be owned by individual proprietors and common property to be owned as tenants in common, the title was owned jointly.
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Previously, no title deed was issued to common property but upon registration of a sectional property plan, a register is now opened for the common property. The schedule of unit entitlement, the addresses for service of notices on the body corporate and alterations of by-laws are recorded therein.
“I have always advocated that there are not enough mortgages in this country, and anything that can assist in financing to people to buy their home, particularly the first home, should be supported by everybody,” Knight Frank Kenya Managing Director Ben Woodhams.
The report in the daily further said that with the new law, developers will not be allowed to construct additions on the same parcel of land where the sold block of apartments stand. “With the amendment, buyers get the actual environment they are buying into, rather than getting duped about the availability of open spaces only for the developer to later erect another set of homes,” it said.
