Kenya Power has been ordered to pay a Nyeri couple Sh20 million in damages after the Environment and Land Court found the utility firm guilty of trespassing and erecting high-voltage power lines on their private land without consent.
The judgment concluded a legal dispute that began in 2021, when the couple sued the electricity distributor over their land parcel in the Mweiga/Thungari area.
The couple purchased the property in 2012 intending to construct executive and affordable residential houses, but the project was allegedly frustrated by the utility firm’s actions.
They told the court that they were finalising architectural drawings in 2014 when workers from Kenya Power & Lighting Company (KPLC) Limited now Kenya Power Company, entered the land and installed live electric cables and electricity poles without permission.
They argued that this made it impossible to proceed with the planned development and sought Sh71.7 million in compensation, along with an unspecified amount in general damages for trespass. They submitted photographs to support their claim.
Additionally, they requested an order compelling Kenya Power to remove the offending posts and electric cables from the land.
The court found that the company had neither sought nor obtained permission before entering the land, surveying it, or erecting the power infrastructure—actions that contravened the Energy Act.
The court stated that the law clearly prohibits anyone from entering another’s land to lay electric supply lines without first notifying the owner and obtaining written consent.
“In this matter, there was no demonstration on the part of the defendant that it had sought or received permission from the plaintiffs to survey and use their land to lay electric power lines before erecting them. The conclusion can only be one,” the court said.
The court noted that Kenya Power’s own documents proved the trespass.
A March 2021 letter from the company’s Nyeri County Business Manager admitted that its technical team had visited the site and confirmed the power line “had been constructed about half a meter inside your land.”
The court questioned how Kenya Power later produced witnesses who claimed the lines lay outside the property.
Two company witnesses testified that they had visited the property to determine the location of what they referred to as KPLC’s medium-voltage electricity poles and lines relative to the property boundaries.
They asserted that the medium-voltage lines were on the road reserve outside the property, contrary to the plaintiffs’ claim, and that only low-voltage lines serving the property lay within its boundaries.
However, the court dismissed their testimony, stating that the witnesses “were being very economical with the truth” after failing to involve the landowners in a site visit that contradicted an earlier official admission.
The court also criticised the company for conducting a unilateral survey of the land in 2023 without inviting the landowners.
In their claim, the couple had also sought reimbursement for professional architectural fees and projected profits lost due to the stalled housing project.
However, the court dismissed these financial claims as speculative. It ruled that the professional fee note the first plaintiff issued to himself—addressed to both his Kenyan address and his own American firm—lacked credibility.
“I was unprepared to accept that the first plaintiff could sit somewhere, dream of a project that had not been approved by any authority, and claim he was entitled to charge fees to himself,” the court stated.
The court took a similar stance on the alleged loss of profit, stating that it lacked factual or actuarial basis.
The judge noted that trespass to land is actionable even without proof of specific damage. Citing legal precedents, he emphasised that damages depend on the circumstances of each case.
The court noted that Kenya Power had been aware of the trespass for years but failed to rectify it despite receiving complaints and admitting fault in writing.
“In the circumstances, this court awards general damages in the sum of Sh20 million,” the court ruled.
It also issued an order compelling Kenya Power to remove the offending posts and electric cables from the land and directed the company to bear the full cost of the suit.
