Former MP given ultimatum to surrender lease documents
Dispute: Titles for 16 villas and a six-acre plot of land are supposed to be deposited in court.
Former MP Njehu Gatabaki and his lawyer, Ashford Muriuki, have been given two weeks to deposit in court lease documents for 16 residential houses and five acres of land at the centre of a family property dispute.
High Court judge Jonathan Havelock said the orders should be complied with by February 23.“If the land documents are not in court on February 23, I will issue an order for committal for contempt, not only against Mr Gatabaki, but the lawyer himself,” ruled Mr Justice Havelock.
The judge said the two had disobeyed orders directing them to deposit the land documents on December 6 last year. Mr Gatabaki is involved in a legal dispute with his wife, Rachel Mwihaki, after 20 acres the couple jointly owned through Sagana Developers were transferred to real estate developer Suraya Properties Group.
She claims her husband was to hold the land in trust, but the same was sold to Suraya to develop Fourways Junction Estate without her proprietory interest being put into account. Mrs Gatabaki is seeking to restrain him from allowing Suraya to construct the houses in the jointly owned land, which was excised from a 200 -acre prime property in South West Nairobi.
Mr Muriuki said Suraya had reneged in its agreement to release 16 villas and the five-acre parcel to Mrs Gatabaki, adding that the developer was already in breach.In the 2009 suit filed under the Marriage Property Act, Mrs Gatabaki has named her husband as a respondent, Suraya Group as an interested party and Muga Developers — which is constructing Fourways — as the third party.
Family Division court judge Leonard Njagi last week ordered that eight of the duly executed lease documents in the name of Mr Gatabaki in respect of 16 villas on L.R. No.28223/2 be deposited at the Milimani Commercial Court on the strength of the consent order recorded on March 30 last year. Mr Gatabaki was also ordered to deposit in court lease documents relating to the five acre portion of land to be hived off from the 200 acres jointly owned by Muga Developers and Suraya Group.
The judge further ordered that Sh24 million out of Sh34 million agreed between Suraya and Mrs Gatabaki to relinquish her interest in the property be deposited in a joint interest earning account in the names of husband’s lawyer Mr Muriuki and Cecil Miller for Muga Developers pending the resolution of the dispute.
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