Land assembly, land acquisition, title, and registration of land tenure

Review of Existing Legislation / Processes

• Sectional Properties Regulations 2021- Provide clarity on the exemptions on what is meant by ‘mixed use development’ in terms of minimum acreage and diversity and ‘substantial transactions’.

• Sectional Properties Act 2020- Extend the current statutory timeline of 2 years for title conversion.

• Land Act No.6 of 2012- Simplify foreclosure procedures to promote mortgage lending

• Sessional Paper No. 3 of 2009 on National Land Policy- The Policy is outdated and due for review, especially to align it with the 2010 Constitution.

• Update other laws and policies that are outdated and in need of revision/updating e.g., Survey Act, Survey Manual, and the National Land Policy 2009;

Develop Regulations for Existing Legislation

• Sectional Properties Act 2020- Provide guidelines or procedures for applying for exemptions from converting long term leases to sectional titles.

• Land Registration Act No. 3 of 2012- Provide for the required guidelines/procedures to support geo-referencing and title migration.

Support implementation of Existing Legislation

• Land Registration Act No. 3 of 2012- Review the design and capacity of ArdhiSasa platform, to enable its functionality with speed and ease; support surveying of land parcels and digitization of land registries in all counties.

• Land Registration Act No. 3 of 2012- Expedite land title conversion processes

• Support development of land value indexes as pro; Kenya National Spatial Data Infrastructure Policy; and the National Land Surveying and Mapping Policy all exist but need to be finalized and operationalized.

• Finalisation of the draft Idle Land Taxation Policy.

• Consider the development of a land banking policy, a law on minimum and maximum acreages of private land and guidelines/regulations on penalties for compliance.

Other non-legislative recommendations

1. The Department of Surveys should prepare and publish guidelines/procedures to inform the issuance of a unique prefix number to support geo-referencing of sectional units given that geospatial data remains uncoordinated;

2. Fast track/expedite title conversions and migration as required by the Land Registration Act 2012 and the Land Registration (Registration Units) Order 2017 which is hampering financing since there is in place a moratorium on dealings/transactions on unmigrated land;
3. Deal with design and operational challenges of the online national land information system (ArdhiSasa platform) and improve transparency on what areas/titles have been uploaded onto the portal;

4. Prepare, publish and adopt policy instruments/frameworks on gender in land, spatial data, and land surveying and mapping; and

5. Fast track the rolling out of land value indexes in many areas to deal with rising land prices arising from land speculation;