As a responsible family head who was seeking future stability, Mr Mwihia Muturi in pure trust started paying Sh503,000 to buy an acre of land in Murang’a County in 2013.
The instalments were to include a Sh410,000 down payment and the balance to be paid upon full transfer of ownership.
A born-again man and an evangelist, Mr Muturi trusted his instincts that the seller was genuine and land deal would end up in him getting ownership title deed.
“But I was mistaken. After the seller took in my deposit, he started urging me to complete payment first so as the succession could take place,” he reveals.
This would be the commencement of his wife’s depression after she feared her husband had lost the huge amount of cash.
“My wife, Ann Wanjiku’s condition deteriorated in August last year… On her deathbed at Kenyatta National Hospital, she told me that she had warned me against trusting that seller…” he recalls.
At 72 and living with disability, he says his wife had opposed the deal saying they needed to engage a lawyer to oversee the transaction.
“But our local administration officers were aware of our deal…I did not anticipate a situation where the seller would attempt to swindle me, yet the government was in the know of our honest deal,” he told Nation.Africa.
And in came a shocker from his wife before her demise: “Should I die, and I feel time is running out, you should never bury me anywhere else. My resting place should be in that disputed land and not later than seven months upon my death”.
Mr Mwihia said the declaration carried an eerie sort of in contravention punishment that “failure to which you will suffer grave consequences”.
Another condition was that she must be buried on that land only if it was fully transferred to him and duly titled.
Mr Mwihia said he knew how vindictive her wife was and trying to argue her out of the ‘declared curse’ would be a waste of time.
“It was a tricky situation she had put me in,” he said.
His wife died on October 18, 2022, and the pain of Mr Mwihia’s wife’s wishes started haunting him.
“Here I am now. Unless God and government arbitrated between myself and the land seller so that I can get the title deed and bury my wife, I might die soon,” he said.
He lamented that since October he has been trying to get the land seller to execute a transfer of the land to no avail.
Nation.Africa established that the land in dispute and in which interestingly, Mr Mwihia lives in and farms but as a squatter is reference Kakuzi/Kirimiri block 9/244 and measuring two acres.
The land is registered to two people– a Mr Benson Mbugu Kamau and Mr Okoti Ongoma.
Mr Mwihia says he was buying Mr Ongoma’s share. But it ended up that it was Mr Kimuyu who assumed the sole role of the seller.
After he had paid Sh410,000 on February 10, 2013, his records show that he paid Sh20,000 on March 28, 2014, Sh8,000 on February 20, 2016, Sh50,000 on October 7, 2016, Sh5,000 on February 18, 2018, and Sh10,000 on August 6, 2018, to total Sh503,000.
“Our initial agreement was that I first get ownership transfer after I paid the down payment of Sh410,000. But he kept on shifting goalposts where finally he demanded that I first pay all amounts due and which I did in August 2018,” he said.
Mr Kimuyu told Nation.Africa that he changed his mind about selling the land.
“In fact, I want him to demolish all the structures he has on that piece of land and get out of it. However, my intention is not to defraud him since I acknowledge receiving the said amounts of money from him,” he said.
Mr Kimuyu added that he wants to sell the land at the current market value and refund him his money and I keep the balance.
Currently, the land is estimated to be worth Sh1.5 million shillings, to mean that if he had his way, Mr Kimuyu would make nearly Sh1 million in profit.
But Mr Mwihia cries foul saying, “then in that case it should be held that I lent him the money and it has been attracting interest”.
He further says it should be considered that in all those years he has been working and living in the land be considered as employment that should attract a monthly salary.
Further, he says his farming on the land is the reason the land has appreciated “and in total, he should compensate me Sh3.5 million as lump sum severance fee”.
“That is my dilemma now. God can touch him and persuade him to stick to our gentleman agreement and reciprocate my trust that saw me release moneys to him in good faith,” he says.
He fears that should anything happen to him, Mr Kimuyu would smile in his scheme since he will just take over the land in dispute.
Again, should some fatal tragedy befall Mr Kimuyu, there will be no succession possible, and the wife’s curse will still remain.
“I am now desperate. I urge the government and the society to see the greed in this fiasco and learn their lessons,” he said. BY DAILY NATION