Five practice areas. Each one read in full before we accept a matter.

Property transactions in Kenya occupy a particular branch of the law — freehold and leasehold, sectional property, the ten-mile coastal strip, settlement schemes, agricultural-land consents. Title in different counties carries different history, and a buyer or seller is poorly served by a firm that has not read it carefully.

Our conveyancing practice covers the full transaction from search to registration:

• Title searches at the Central Registry, Nairobi and at every county registry across Kenya
• Sale Agreements drafted and negotiated, with structured deposit and completion provisions
• Charges, discharges, partial discharges, and consents to subdivide
• Sectional Properties Act conversions and registrations
• Stamp duty assessment and discharge
• Beneficial ownership disclosure under the Companies Act
• Transfer of long leases and reversionary interests
• Land Control Board consents on agricultural land

We act for both vendors and purchasers, including Kenyan residents, the Kenyan diaspora, and foreign investors. We will tell a prospective buyer when a title has signals we do not like, and we will tell a seller when their disclosure obligations require a longer answer than they expected.

Relevant authority: Land Act (Cap. 280) · Land Registration Act (Cap. 300) · Sectional Properties Act (No. 21 of 2020) · Stamp Duty Act (Cap. 480).

Our advocates appear regularly before the Magistrate’s Courts in Mombasa, Nairobi, and the up-country registries; the High Court (Civil and Commercial Divisions); the Environment and Land Court; and the Court of Appeal. Matters originating outside our office cities are handled by travel where the litigation strategy calls for it.

The litigation we are most experienced in:

• Contract disputes — performance, repudiation, recovery
• Recovery of debts, including via summary procedure under Order 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules
• Specific performance and rescission of land sale agreements
• Disputes over advocate-and-client professional undertakings
• Boundary disputes, easements, and right-of-way matters
• Trust and beneficial-interest claims
• Appeals from the Magistrate’s Court and the ELC

We are candid with clients about the cost-and-time arithmetic of litigation. Where a dispute can be resolved at less cost by negotiation, mediation, or arbitration, we say so before any pleading is filed.

Relevant authority: Civil Procedure Act (Cap. 21) · Civil Procedure Rules · Limitation of Actions Act (Cap. 22) · Court of Appeal Rules.

Estates with Kenyan assets often span jurisdictions and generations. A buyer of a holiday home in 1985 may have died in Frankfurt in 2014, leaving a will probated in Germany but real property still on title somewhere in Kenya. A Nairobi businessman’s estate may extend across several counties and several beneficiaries who have not spoken in years. The work to resolve these is not exotic, but it requires both patience and a clear procedural map.

Our estate practice covers:

• Grants of representation (probate of a will, letters of administration intestate)
• Letters of administration ad colligenda bona — limited grants used to protect estate assets before a full grant issues
• Resealing of foreign grants under the Probate and Administration Rules
• Confirmation of grants and distribution to beneficiaries
• Disputed estates — rectification proceedings, revocation applications, contested distributions
• Estates of foreign nationals with Kenyan assets, including coordination with foreign counsel
• Family arrangements and deeds of variation

We coordinate with executors, named beneficiaries, surviving spouses, and counsel in other jurisdictions. Where the estate involves a deceased foreign national, we will request the foreign grant and translated documents at the start so the Kenyan filing can be prepared in parallel with rather than after the foreign probate.

Relevant authority: Law of Succession Act (Cap. 160) · Probate and Administration Rules · Public Trustee Act (Cap. 168).

The Environment and Land Court is one of the more demanding fora in the Kenyan judicial system. Its caseload includes some of the longest-running and most consequential disputes in the country: compulsory acquisition compensation claims against the National Lands Commission, encroachment proceedings, contested boundaries, public-purpose vacates, and the slow procedural arc by which the Constitution’s land provisions are given effect.

We have acted in:

• Compulsory acquisition by the National Lands Commission — compensation claims and award challenges
• Encroachment, trespass, and unlawful occupation of private and trust land
• Settlement scheme disputes, including allocations under the Coast Land Settlement Scheme
• Boundary disputes and surveyor’s reports
• Public-purpose acquisitions for highway, railway, and port-expansion projects
• Easements, right-of-way, and access disputes

NLC compensation matters in particular are slow. The published timelines for compensation under the Land Act are not always the timelines that obtain in practice. We tell our clients what to expect: the gazette notice, the valuation, the award, the payment, the dispute window, and the realistic months at which each stage typically completes.

Relevant authority: Environment and Land Court Act (Cap. 12A) · Land Act (Cap. 280) · National Land Commission Act (Cap. 5D) · Constitution of Kenya, 2010 (Chapter 5).

The fifth strand of the firm’s practice is the corporate and notarial work that supports the other four. Most of our retainer clients use the firm for both transactional work and for the statutory paperwork that follows it.

We provide:

• Commissioner for Oaths services — affidavits, statutory declarations, oaths and affirmations
• Notary Public services — notarisation and authentication of documents for use abroad
• Company secretarial work — incorporation, share transfers, statutory filings, minute keeping
• Beneficial ownership filings under the Companies Act and the Beneficial Ownership Regulations
• Drafting and review of commercial agreements — shareholders’ agreements, supply agreements, service agreements
• Sworn translations coordination (in conjunction with sworn translators)

Relevant authority: Companies Act (Cap. 486) · Notaries Public Act (Cap. 17) · Oaths and Statutory Declarations Act (Cap. 15).