A couple has sued Stanbic Bank seeking to block the lender from auctioning their three properties in Mombasa and Nairobi, over a loan they claimed to have repaid by more than Sh463 million.
Nasser Abdulhamid Baksh and Makarim Ahmed Omar rushed to court after the lender instructed Garam Investments Auctioneers to sell the three properties, including their matrimonial home in Kitisuru, to recover a loan of Sh163 million.
They, however, disputed the alleged balance and accused the lender of making unexplained increases in the monthly repayments and interest rates, despite making regular repayments. The couple further accused the lender of converting the loan accounts into US dollars, yet they were disbursed in Kenyan shillings.
“The said illegal conversions were procured in contravention of the Constitution of Kenya, Articles 35 and 46, and various applicable provisions of the Banking Act, the Consumer Protection Act, and the Central Bank of Kenya Prudential Guidelines,” Mr Baksh said.
High Court Judge Aleem Visram directed the couple to serve the lender with the court documents and appear for directions on September 22, 2025.
The couple alleged that the illegally converted US dollar loan account statements were never made available to them until June 16, when they had issued a fourth demand letter citing breach of their constitutional right to information. Other than the court case, the couple has complained to the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK).
The couple said the planned auction of the properties is founded on grossly inflated, illegal and heavily contested balances, emanating from unilateral and unsolicited conversions of the home loans.
“The Petitioners now seek intervention of this court in the form of an order compelling the bank to reconvert the loans to Kenya shillings and then compute what has been repaid in United States Dollars to Kenya Shillings to determine and or authenticate what the Petitioners have paid at the initial home loan offer contracted interest rates,” Mr Baksh said.
Evidence tabled in court showed that the couple borrowed the loans between 2011 and 2014, amounting to Sh101.2 million. To secure the loans, they charged five properties, including two in Mombasa, Kitisuru and Nairobi.
The couple said they operated two dollar and one Kenya shilling bank accounts through which they remitted the loan repayments from 2011 to May 2025.
In all the years, the couple alleged that they were never provided with bank statements and or loan account statements by the bank until June this year, after making several demands.
The couple say the have paid an equivalent of Sh466 million, thereby surpassing the Duplum Rule threshold given that they had borrowed Sh101.2 million.
Ms Baksh said in an email dated February 13, 2025, the bank had demanded a balance of Sh5 million, which he said could be liquidated by one of the properties.
“However, in an interesting twist of events, the Respondent (Stanbic) now seeks to recover an aggregated amount of Sh163,083,865.18,” he said, an amount that allegedly continues to accrue interest.
He said the bank has never served them before varying or changing the interest sought, with the mandatory statutory written notice of change as required by law.
The couple said it was only in 2022, when they demanded to know why the bank had demanded loan arrears, yet they were remitting funds that were over and above their agreed monthly loan repayment, that they were informed that the loans had been converted to US dollars and were presented with an amount to pay to avoid losing their properties.
Mr Baksh said when they demanded a reversal, back to Kenyan shillings, the bank allegedly refused, rendering them “enslaved to repay amounts whose origin and computation they did not know” until the statements were provided in June 2025.
“We believe that we were coerced and bullied into executing the conversion contracts in January 2024 in an attempt to sanitise and or cure what the bank had failed to do in 2014 when they illegally converted our loans, as we have now never been availed these and can only conclude that they do not exist,” he said.
