The government has allayed fears that Kenyans who buy homes under the Affordable Housing Programme will lose their investments in the event of a future change of government.
Housing PS Charles Hinga said in a press statement that Kenya is a constitutional democracy founded on the rule of law and the security of property.
“The right to own property is among the most carefully protected guarantees in our Constitution. Under Article 40, every person has the right to acquire and own property, and no one may be deprived of property except in strict accordance with the law and upon prompt payment of full and just compensation,” he said.
Hinga said a home lawfully purchased by a Kenyan is that Kenyan’s property fully, securely and permanently.
“It does not become less so because of who holds public office today or who may hold it tomorrow. A title lawfully acquired is not a political favour to be withdrawn at will; it is a right that the state exists to defend.”
Hinga said a purchased home and the financing of the programme are two different things.
The PS said citizens must not be misled by the conflation of two separate matters.
“The Affordable Housing Levy is a financing mechanism established by law. A housing unit purchased by a beneficiary is private property, held under a binding sale agreement.”
Hinga said whatever debate may take place about the financing of the programme, it has no bearing whatsoever on the ownership of a home that a citizen has already lawfully bought and paid for.
“No administration present or future can lawfully extinguish that ownership by pronouncement. To suggest otherwise is to misstate the law and to cause needless anxiety to families who have done nothing other than invest lawfully in their own future.”
Hinga said the programme rests on a deliberate and enacted legal framework.
“The Affordable Housing Programme is not an informal arrangement. It operates under the Affordable Housing Act, 2024 (Act No. 2 of 2024), enacted by Parliament expressly to give effect to Article 43(1)(b) of the Constitution, which guarantees every Kenyan the right to accessible and adequate housing,” he said.
Hinga said allocations and purchases are governed by formal agreements administered through the Boma Yangu platform.
He said on completion of purchase, a beneficiary receives a sectional title issued in his or her own name under the Sectional Properties Act 2020.
The PS said the sectional title is a registered and indefeasible instrument of ownership, capable of being transferred, bequeathed or charged like any other title in Kenya.
“These are enforceable legal instruments, and the protections they confer flow from the law of the land and not from the goodwill of any officeholder.”
Hinga said the rights of the poor are not lesser rights.
“The Constitution recognises no hierarchy of property owners. The protections of Article 40 apply with equal force to the largest landowner and to the first-time buyer of a one-bedroom unit.”
The PS said an affordable housing unit is the first asset for very many beneficiaries of the programme that they will ever own.
Hinga said the programme is the first step out of a lifetime of renting and the beginning of security and inheritance for their children.
“To single out these citizens and tell them that their lawfully acquired homes are uniquely unsafe is to suggest that the property of the modest Kenyan is worth less than the property of the powerful. The Constitution holds the opposite.”
The PS said equality before the law under Article 27 and the inherent dignity of every person under Article 28 are not privileges reserved for the comfortable.
“A nation is measured by how it protects its most vulnerable. The true test of a country is not how it treats those who already have much, but whether it can guarantee the meekest among us the quiet enjoyment of what they have lawfully earned.”
Hinga said citizens taking their first and hardest steps toward a home of their own are precisely those to whom the state owes its highest duty of protection.
“A nation that cannot offer them that assurance has not yet become the country its Constitution promises. This is the standard to which the State Department holds itself and to which it remains firmly committed.”
The PS assured all current and prospective beneficiaries of the Affordable Housing Programme that homes lawfully acquired under the Programme are, and will remain, the secure property of their owners, protected by the Constitution and the laws of Kenya.
He encouraged Kenyans to continue pursuing home ownership with confidence and without fear.
