A Court has ruled that Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua is the lawful owner of the Sh1.5 billion property situated near JKIA.
Environment and Lands Court Judge Oguttu Mboya ruled that Wamunyoro Investments is the lawful registered owner of the property in question.
Gachagua is the Managing Director of the firm.
The court ruled that a company that was laying claim to the property obtained its title fraudulently.
The Judge subsequently ordered the Chief Lands Registrar to rectify the register in the lands office to cancel all unlawful entries on behalf of the company that had laid claims to the property and indicate Wamunyoro as the lawful proprietor of the property.
The registrar was also ordered to cancel and nullify the title issued in favor of the company that had claimed the property.
The case was filed in court in 2022 by Wamunyoro Investments.
Through lawyer Philip Nyachoti, the company, Wamunyoro Investments accused a former official and the company of tampering with records at the land office.
The property, according to Gachagua, is charged to Equity Bank as collateral for various financial facilities granted to him at Sh200 million.
Court documents show the previous owners of the land situated in Nairobi were Karandi Farm Limited, Peter Mbugua, and Pauline Muringe.
The three were on April 30, 1999, jointly allotted the property for a sum of Sh554,000. The money was paid and a certificate was issued.
Gachagua was subsequently approached by the owners of the property with the intention of selling it.
“I carried out due diligence and was able to confirm that the previous owners' certificate of title was authentic and indeed genuine,” he said.
Gachagua then purchased the property for Sh24 million from the previous owners.
A transfer was effected and a title deed was issued to the company. From the time he purchased it in 2012, he has been paying land rates to the Nairobi county government.
But in 2016, the official and the company that claimed the property lodged a formal complaint with the National Land Commission against Wamunyoro over the property.
The official claimed to have been allotted the land on February 3, 1994, and soon thereafter, the property was invaded by thousands of squatters who made it impossible for him to utilise.
