LSK now agrees to work with Lands Ministry on digital move

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) and the Ministry of Lands have formed a team to forge guidelines for online transactions.

This comes after an announcement, that the ministry would move documents to the land information management system, raised concerns from lawyers.

According to the CS Farida Karoney, going online will enable handling of several land transactions in one go including transfer of ownership, issuance of consent, valuation requests and registration of land documents.

The lawyers had initially said their physical presence was necessary to guarantee the integrity of the process.

In a letter to the Ms. Karoney, the president of the LSK Allen Gichuhi complained of the apparent exclusion of lawyers from the processes saying it is only lawyers who can prepare conveyancing instruments.

Part of issues to be addressed by the committee include how to effect digital signatures on land documents, effect online duty stamping since regulations as they are now disallow online stamping of title deeds.

That will require passage of regulations on land management currently in Parliament and gazettement of guidelines by the ministry, a process that CS Karoney says should be concluded in 3 months time.

As it stands all land consents between spouses, county land, and transfer of agricultural land consents will have to be processed manually until an online framework is established.

“Right now you can do online search, pay land rates, apply for valuation,” she said.

Additional reporting by Sam Gituku