Electronic Land Registry for Kenya

Abstract

Land in most Kenyan societies is the most important of the natural resources, representing the foundation of much of the country's economic activity. For most individual Kenyans, the purchase of a parcel of land represents the largest financial and legal transaction of their lifetime. Hence the buying, selling, and refinancing of land is a significant component of the Kenyan economy. Therefore the. ability to firmly and quickly establish ownership and to allow secure and effective transfers is essential to the economic competitiveness of Kenya in the modern world. The ever-increasing growth in population has led to the ownership of land changing hands frequently. This has led to an increase in the number of transactions carried out daily in the land registries, and corroborated with the independent decentralized land registries units, makes the present manual registration system slow, cumbersome, costly to run, manage and maintain. The idea was conceptualized after a study of land registration in England, Wales and the province of Ontario, who have successfully managed to fully implement Electronic Land Registration. From this study, ways in which Kenyan land registration system could be improved. The current land law recognizes paper based transactions only. For Electronic registration system to be actualized, reference was made to the land laws of Kenya, consultation with land law experts was also done so as to formulate a suitable legal framework. Electronic land registration system for Kenya, has been designed with the end user in mind, the system supports the current workflow of documents from one office to the next in a typical land registry. The language used on the interface is simplified and the system generated messages uses jargon that the end users are used to. This makes it easier for them to adapt to the new system and also reduces training time.