Commentaries From Our Desk

24 Feb, 2025

Why Are Conveyancing Delays Still A Norm In Kenya's Property Market?

Silas Akiro

5 min Read

Conveyancing, the legal process of transferring ownership of property from one person to another, plays a crucial role in Kenya's real estate transactions. However, despite legal and administrative reforms over the past decade, the conveyancing process remains marred by persistent delays that continue to frustrate buyers, sellers, investors, developers, and even legal practitioners. These delays have become a norm, hindering economic growth and diminishing confidence in property transactions.

A major cause of delay has been the digital transition of land records through the Ardhisasa platform, a system developed to modernize and digitize Kenya’s land registry. While the intention was noble—streamlining processes, improving transparency, and reducing fraud—the rollout has been far from seamless. Property owners have been required to verify and upload land documents manually, leading to massive backlogs. Until verification is complete, transactions involving affected parcels cannot proceed. This situation has disrupted not only individual sales but also the financing ecosystem, with the Kenya Bankers Association noting that the shift blocked nearly Kshs. 104 billion in credit as at 2021, affecting thousands of transactions across the country.

The bureaucracy within public institutions also contributes significantly to delays. The Land Registries across the country are often understaffed and lack adequate resources. Files are misplaced or delayed, and the manual processes that still exist in some registries result in time-consuming back-and-forths. Corruption also plays a significant role. There are entrenched cartels operating within the registries who exploit these inefficiencies to solicit bribes from desperate applicants. Moreover, policy decisions are sometimes made and implemented unilaterally without due stakeholder consultation, resulting in abrupt changes in procedure or requirements, thereby stalling ongoing transactions.

Communication breakdowns among stakeholders such as lawyers, surveyors, financiers, government agencies, and clients also significantly contribute to delays. Often, information is not shared in a timely or transparent manner, leading to misaligned expectations or failure to act promptly. The more parties involved in a transaction, the higher the chances of miscommunication or oversight, each contributing its share to the delay. Developers and legal practitioners have repeatedly called for streamlined communication channels and greater inter-agency collaboration, but little progress has been seen in actual implementation.

In conclusion, the enduring problem of conveyancing delays in Kenya’s property market arises from a web of legal, institutional, and systemic inefficiencies. While the government’s digital reforms are a step in the right direction, their success will depend on stakeholder engagement, transparency, and consistent resourcing. At the same time, there is need for greater accountability among parties to land transactions and more efficient judicial intervention when disputes arise. Until these issues are comprehensively addressed, the conveyancing process will remain a major bottleneck in Kenya’s real estate development and economic growth.