Cabinet Secretary for Lands and Physical Planning Farida Karoney, has gazetted the new land reference specifications for Land Registration Units.
The general public has been informed that all transactions or dealings relating to parcels within the registration unit, shall from the 1st April, 2021, be carried out in the new registers. The public has also been advised to duly take note of the new parcel numbers.
For example, Old L.R. No.209/7229 now is Parcel No.1, Old L.R. No.4393/19 is now Parcel Number 2. The general public can get the full list as gazetted in the Kenya Gazette, dated 31st December, 2020.
The changes to the land registration numbers come following The Land Registration Act, which was enacted in 2012, thereby nullifying all other land registration regulations that were in place before.
Under the new regulations, the office responsible for land survey will prepare Registry Index Maps (RIMs), which display all land parcels within a specific area, as opposed to a deed plan that captures data on one specific parcel. The RIMs are expected to significantly decrease land fraud, as they are more specific.
The announcement also stated that cancellation and replacement will change the current land parcels, migrate the parcels to the new process, while retaining the ownership, size and the other interests.
Land title documents held by third parties including banks, hospitals, courts e.t.c. as security at the time of commencement shall be replaced upon application by the owners of the land.
Further queries shall be covered under a special tab dubbed conversion in the Frequently asked questions (FAQs) section of the Ministry’s website.