UK resident, aunt fight over Uthiru piece of land
By Bernice.Mbugua, June 24, 2022
A Kenyan resident of the United Kingdom and his aunt are embroiled in a tussle over a piece of land in Uthiru, Nairobi county, which the latter claims belong to his late father.
Raoul Emanuel Muchene wants the court to evict his aunt Racheal Nduta Mwaura from the land, accusing her of scheming to acquire it illegally.
Muchene who holds dual Kenyan-UK citizenship claims the land initially belonged to his late grandfather Caxton Mukiri who bequeathed it to his father. He says his grandfather had five children including his father and the disputed land is where the family homestead was built.
His grandfather distributed his property among his children and left the disputed land to his late father in line with the Kikuyu customary law, which he alleges required the first son inherits the family homestead.
His aunt, a sister to his father, however, returned home with her children after she separated from her husband.
Surrender property
“The late grandfather in agreement with the family allowed her back into the property to temporarily stay there as she prepared to develop her share from the family property,” claimed Muchene.
He alleges that his aunt was allowed to settle on the property since his father lived and worked in the UK and had no immediate plans to develop the property.
“However, when my late father retired from the UK and came back to the country to develop a home for his family on the property he was surprised when his sister declined to surrender the property,” he claimed in court documents.
He says the effort to recover the property and develop it has hit a snag with his aunt’s refusal to vacate the same, even though she continues to reap the benefits of her own property which she developed while living on the disputed property.
His aunt however insists that the said property was bequeathed to her by the father after she separated from her husband in 1980.
She told the court that she has been staying in that home for about three decades and it is the only home she has ever known.