Title deed hurdles hit uptake of subsidised housing loans

KMRC offers banks and saccos long-term funds at a fixed interest rate of five percent for onward lending to prospective homeowners at single-digit rates. Successful applicants have up to 25 years to repay the mortgages.

Prospective homeowners applying for home loans under the affordable housing programme must have their land titles registered two times: first by their bank or sacco and then by KMRC which provides funding.

Registration with primary lenders—which kicks off the mortgages—takes three months based on industry information, while it takes a similar period to transfer and register the same portfolio with KMRC.

“There is a bit of an improvement because of the digitisation process they are undertaking. But we hear (from banks and saccos) there are a lot of challenges because the process is still largely inefficient to the extent that institutions don’t get registration as fast,” Mr Oltetia said.

“We would have expected that registration with KMRC would take about a month because that portfolio is already registered (with primary mortgage lenders). A shorter period for registration of titles will encourage a lot more activity in homeownership processes.”

Reports of brazen corruption in land registration and titling have been around for years, with officials often accused of hiding files to delay processing in a bid to be bribed.

Read:  US raises alarm about Kenya’s fake title deeds

To mitigate corruption, the Lands Ministry has been digitising land registries through the installation of the National Land Information Management System, which has been developed in Nairobi and Murang’a.

Digitisation of titling processes is ongoing in Mombasa, Isiolo, and Marsabit counties, according to the latest report by the Lands Ministry.

“We think there is a bit of work that is taking place there, and that’s encouraging,” Mr Oltetia said.

“For example, it used to take about four to six months to complete the process of registration with primary lenders. Today, it is taking about three months.”

The State Department for Land and Physical Planning says in the latest report that it processed and issued 422,313 title deeds last financial year ended June 2024, exceeding a target of 330,000 titles.

“[We] exceeded the target due to improved service delivery and increased demand for land services,” the department said in its report.
Registration and processing of titles have been cited as a major barrier to trade not only for domestic investors but also for their foreign counterparts.

“The process for leasing developed land and property (in Kenya) is clear and established, but the process for obtaining leasehold title of undeveloped land is opaque and unreliable,” Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) wrote in the 2025 National Trade Estimate (NTE) to President Trump and Congress.

“For undeveloped land, investors risk receiving fake title deeds or leasing a plot with multiple titles and unauthorised sales.”

The Affordable Housing Board (AHB), which is overseeing the building of State-funded units, says the government is undertaking registration of titles for the parcels of land where the houses are being built to facilitate faster funding and transfer to homebuyers upon completion.

Read:  Why State is racing to document land titles for affordable housing projects

“There are teams out there from State departments for Housing, Lands, and others who are regularising all issues about land ownership,” Sheila Waweru, the acting chief executive of AHB, told the Business Daily in February.

“This is because [in the past] we have known that government is government land and no one will take it, but there have been cases where individuals have claimed ownership of public land.”

The Lands Ministry in March 2022 shocked lawmakers when it disclosed that about 1,500 public properties in Nairobi alone did not have titles, underlining the historical challenge of titling of public land which has exposed the parcels to “land grabbing” cartels.

The properties at the time included the iconic Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), Nairobi County government-owned Pumwani Maternity Hospital, Uhuru, and Central Parks.

The Ruto administration has identified about 12,000 acres of land under national and county governments for the construction of affordable houses targeting at least 200,000 units a year.

The AHB is under the Affordable Housing Programme, building social housing units [bed-sitters] targeted at persons earning less than Sh20,000 per month, affordable housing for workers with income of between Sh20,000 and Sh149,000 and affordable middle-class housing for those earning more than Sh149,000.

Some 124,000 houses are at different stages of construction in various parts of the country, with 4,888 units expected to be ready for occupation by June.

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