The High Court has suspended the issuance of 22,000 title deeds in Kajiado county in a move that could affect land-selling companies and plot owners processing the ownership documents.
Justice Maxwell Gicheru ordered that the titling of the plots be halted to allow for public input in a plan established by the Kajiado county assembly.
The court also ruled that monies paid to consultants by plot owners be refunded in less than 60 days.
The plots in question were part of the Kajiado County Council.
“The county department of land and county attorney should take responsibility for the survey and titling process,” the judge ordered on Friday.
Some parcels in Kajiado have not had ownership titles for more than 40 years, exposing buyers to brokers and fraudsters.
The order comes at a time when the country has witnessed demolitions of homes built on allegedly grabbed lands in the Athi River.
For more than 40 years, most of the residents in Kajiado have had no ownership documents and that has been blamed on the defunct Olkejuado County Council where councillors made double or even triple allocation of plots to individuals.
In some areas, land disputes have been the order of the day, following double allocation by the defunct county council.
Early in the year, the county government in conjunction with the National Land Commission embarked on the issuance of title deeds to clear the current mess.
The Department of Lands controversially hired three consultancy firms to carry out the exercise, however, some of landowners petitioned the process.
The landowners questioned the involvement of one of the firms that belongs to a former county council employee, which they accused of being part of the problem they are undergoing.
The County Lands Executive Hamilton Parseina on Sunday said they would honour the ruling and go back to the drawing board.
