Retired African Inland Church (AIC) Bishop Silas Misoi Yego has lost the battle to stop the auctioning of his multi-million property in the upmarket Kileleshwa area. The Bishop has failed to save his 50 high-end apartments which will now be auctioned by the TransNational Bank over a Sh. 153 million loan.
Bishop Yego had borrowed the money from Trans National Bank in 2014 to construct 50 apartment units on the property through his firm, Siro Investments. Last year, though, he failed to service the loan. This saw Trans National Bank ask Purple Royal Auctioneers to recover the loan through a public sale.
Bishop Yego had moved to court to challenge the auction saying the bank had undervalued the property and that the outstanding balance was Sh. 86 million not the Sh. 153 million quoted by the lender. He also complained that the bank failed to issue him the required notification of sale.
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In the first ruling, Justice David Majanja ruled that since Bishop Yego admitted the indebtedness, and could therefore not suffer the loss that cannot be compensated by damages.
“According to the correspondence between the parties, the plaintiff has been in default since 2019. He has not met promise to settle the debt despite several offers by the bank to accept settlement,” said justice Majanja.
The judge said Bishop Yego based his complaint on the fact that he had entered into a sale agreement with a third party who was willing to buy the property at Sh. 200 million. Mr Yego had attached a sale agreement made between him and Peter Kivolonzi who had agreed to purchase the suit property for Sh. 200 million. He told court that the sale derailed in the wake of Covid-19, whose effects has sharply cut sales and reduced appetite for properties.
Bishop Yego then appealed this ruling. But the appeal was dismissed because there were no new facts to enable the court to hear the case afresh. “Like the Court of Appeal held, the plaintiff is indebted to the bank and nothing now stands in the way of the bank exercising its statutory power of sale,” the court ruled.