It is sad to see homes, many built on the sweat and tears of innocent land buyers, being demolished on grounds that they were built on land that was illegally allocated. This points to a deeper problem which makes it possible for land ‘sellers’, some of who sell land they do not have title deeds to make gains from buyers’ ignorance or from lapses in the law. This is a problem the government must feel duty bound to address especially now given that a court in Nairobi has given thousands of families until December 31 to move out or else face eviction squads.

Whereas there is a large — and almost unhealthy — appetite for land in the country, there are no corresponding legal safeguards to protect willing but ignorant buyers from investing their hard earned cash in dubious purchases that are not supported by legal documents. This points to a need for public education on the must-follow steps that one must undertake to be considered genuine land buyers. As it is, anyone with a receipt book can open a container office in the middle of nowhere and purport to sell land without following due process or offering the accepted legal documentation. It is time that such merchants were arrested and made an example so that it can server as a deterrent to others who have been mushrooming all over promising to sell prime land.

There is also need to regulate the relationship between land selling companies and investment saccos because there have been one or two cases of saccos purporting to be marketers for land buying projects and giving their members loans, which are then invested in buying non-existent plots. Such saccos must, by law, be made to compensate their members for giving them misleading information that led to loss of their money or property or both.

Part of the impunity has thrived because in the past, no action was taken against rogue land selling companies and individuals who misled the public into making investments that eventually went up in smoke because they were based on invalid documents and contracts.

Bottom line, however, is to have more robust laws that are enforced, buyer education and severe punishment for sellers who take advantage of public ignorance to fleece prospective home owners.