The Environment and Land Court in Thika has sent a wake-up call to absentee landowners via a shock ruling, where a title deed owner lost their land to a long-term occupant via adverse possession.
In the case of James Kamau Githuka v. Njoroge Njau (2025), the applicant, James Githuka, sought to have the court legally declare him the owner of a parcel of land in Githunguri, Utawala, through adverse possession.
In response, the court stripped the registered owner, Njoroge Njau, of his parcel of land after the owner failed to check on his property for two decades.
According to the court, Njau did not try to evict or demand rent from Githuka for two decades. The court reports indicate that he did not even show up in court to defend his title when the case was filed.
Githuka told the court that his father had purchased the land years ago. However, the official paperwork to transfer the title was never completed.
Despite the missing paperwork, Githuka lived openly on the land since 2005.
As a result, the court applied the principle of "adverse possession,” which under Kenyan law allows for the extinction of a landowner’s title if another individual occupies their land for 12 or more years without the landowner's permission.
The court stated that adverse possession law requires possession to be open, peaceful, and continuous. It maintained that the process cannot be done in secret or by force, which according to the court Githuka had met all these requirements and had lived on the land for 20 years.
Additionally, the court explained that adverse possession is not a legal loophole. Instead, it is a consequence for landowners who "sleep on their rights."
The court interpreted that if anyone cares about their land, they should take steps to protect it. It clarified that a landowner does not have to live on their land to keep it. However, if absent, the landowners must actively enforce their legal rights.
According to a summary of the court ruling and in reference to past rulings, people who have lived peacefully on land where owners have vanished have a legitimate path to ownership of the land after 12 years
The ruling also delineates that title deed holders, whether bought, inherited, or received as a gift, must monitor the parcel.
