Exercise due diligence before making transactions, land buyers warned

Land buyers have been called upon to exercise due diligence before taking any decision that would lead to them being conned in the process.

With the rising cases of scammers, a land expert has underlined the need to conduct title deed search in order to establish the rightful owners of the land.

Mr Geoffrey Kiragu, the director of Lesedi Group, pointed out that credible information can be found on the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning’s online platform ‘ArdhiSasa’ which is free of charge.

“Once you find land to buy, you need to ask the seller to give you the title deed to carry out a land search to see the rightful owner of the land,” he said.

Without having to walk to Ardhi House, to queue and perform a land search, one can search from anywhere and reduce fraud and other errors that would occur during the land buying process, Mr Kiragu noted.

Additionally, it is possible for one to search on behalf of someone else using an individual account. However, the property owner has to verify that they have permitted you to do the search on their behalf.

Other than doing a land search, you can do land registration and administration, physical planning, survey and mapping and valuation.

Once you find the land you want to purchase, you can get in touch with a lawyer to help with the land transfer process and do due diligence to ensure you are getting what you want.

“With the number of cons out there waiting to scam people, it is pretty difficult to look at a document and ascertain whether it’s real or fake as the fraudsters have come up with really clever ways of making a title deed look as real as possible,” he said.

Mr Kiragu pointed out that the first red flag is when a seller becomes hesitant to give the title of the land.

A title deed is an official, legal document which has information about the person who owns property or a piece of land.