A city businessman has explained to the court how he genuinely owns a property in dispute worth Sh 100 million located in the Eastleigh area in Nairobi where another party is claiming to own the same.
In his statement presented before Justice David Mwangi, Abdi Dahir Ali who is the defendant in the suit indicated that he genuinely owns two parcels of land LR No 36/VII/1078 and LR No 36/VII/1079 negating the claims by Lafey Trading Company who filed a case demanding the same properties.
He says that the properties were allocated to him by the commissioner for lands after paying a required consideration and handed two letters of allotment both dated September 16, 1999, describing them as unsurveyed business cum residential plots.
After the allocation of the properties, he said that he was required to pay Sh 911,100 to the commissioner for lands which he paid via cheque for stand premiums, rent, stamp duty, conveyancing and registration fees, “The payments were to be done in order to secure the allocation of the properties and issuance of grants to him.”
Subsequently to the payments the commissioner for lands had the parcels fully surveyed and deed plans were processed allocating reference numbers to the plots and the registrar of titles thereafter issued a grant.
The complaint Lafey Trading Company filed a suit to pursue the same parcels of land whose registration numbers differ from that of the respondent LR No 36/VII/1076 and LR No.
In his plaint, he claims to own the two properties by allotment letter dated August 12, 1997, and thereafter agreement for lease made on December 28, 1999, between the company and Nairobi County government.
The complainant says he was further issued with deed plan numbers 3111846 and 311846 respectively on September 3, 2010, in respect of the two parcels of land.
He claims that on November 5, 2010, the Commission for Lands issued titles illegally and unlawfully to Dahir concerning the suit properties while the plaintiff had the properties.
He states that “the conspiracy to fraudulently dispossess his properties through underground dealings,” and when he reported the matter to the police they refused to assist him but on the contrary, they started working in collision with Dahir and the county government of Nairobi.
Dahir states that properties LR No 36/VII/1078 and LR No 36/VII/1079 were public land which was held by the government which the commissioner for lands had the authority to allot but not the Nairobi City Council who allotted to the plaintiff.
He argued that the Commissioner for Lands had not allotted the two parcels of land to Nairobi City Council precluded them from allotting them to the plaintiff.
In late 2011, Dahir says that the complainant invaded his properties claiming being allotted the same by City Council.
He visited the planning department at the City Council and brought attention to them that the properties LR No 36/VII/1078 and LR No 36/VII/1079 he owned had mysteriously overlapped with LR 36/VII/1076 and LR 36/VII/1077 which the complainant claimed to be allotted to him by the City Council.
He requested the City Council to cancel the allotment letter of the complainant considering that the Council did not hold any title to allot him the properties.
On calling for the cancellation, the City Council clarified that the land in question was rightfully under the commissioner for lands which had surveyed and allocated the parcels to Dahir, which was confirmed by a letter dated April 4, 2011.
The survey department later cancelled the deed plans and allotment letters of the two properties after learning the manner they were obtained by the complainant.
When Stephen Mwangi the licensed land surveyor was cross-examined by the defence lawyer, he did not dispute that the public land is under Commissioner for Lands and can only be allotted by the commission.