34 Days to Lose a Home: A Wife, a Loan, and the Land Transfer That Failed the Law

Environment & Land Law | Property Rights | Matrimonial Property | January 2026

It began, as many land disputes do, quietly.

A husband.
A piece of ancestral land.
A loan dressed as a sale.
And a wife who discovered, too late, that her family’s land had changed hands in just 34 days.

On 19th January 2026, the Environment and Land Court at Thika delivered a judgment that cut through contracts, timelines, and titles to answer a simple but powerful question:

Can a title acquired too fast survive the law?

The answer was a resounding no.

A Marriage, a Loan, and a Title That Vanished Overnight

In Jane Watiri Gitungo v Johnson Gitungo Kamau & another (ELCA E034 of 2023), the court was asked to untangle a deeply personal dispute disguised as a commercial transaction.

Jane Watiri Gitungo sued her husband and a third party purchaser over land known as Ndumberi/Riabai/5707.

Her story was painfully familiar.

Her husband had entered into what was called a “Loan and Sale Agreement”.
The land was pledged as security for a loan, repayable within 90 days.

But before those 90 days could even breathe, something shocking happened.

Within 34 days, the land had already been transferred.
A title had already been issued.
And the land that sheltered her family was no longer theirs.

Jane moved to court alleging fraud, collusion, and illegal transfer.

The trial court dismissed her case.

But the law was not done listening.

Three Questions the Appeal Court Had to Answer

When the matter reached the Environment and Land Court on appeal, Justice Mogeni framed the case around three critical legal questions:

Was this land matrimonial property requiring spousal consent?
Was the transfer done before the agreed 90 days had expired?
Could a title obtained in breach of a contract survive Section 26 of the Land Registration Act?

The answers would redefine the fate of the title.

Was This Matrimonial Property? Not Quite.

The court first dealt with an emotional but legally delicate question.

The land had been inherited by the husband before the marriage.

Under the Matrimonial Property Act, inherited property acquired before marriage is not automatically matrimonial property.

Jane could only claim an interest if she proved contribution, financial or non-financial, to its development.

She did not.

On this point, the trial court had been right.

But the real battle lay elsewhere.

The 90-Day Rule That Was Broken in 34 Days

This is where the case turned.

The agreement was clear:
The loan was repayable in 90 days.

Only after default could the security be realized.

Yet the evidence told a brutal truth:

Agreement date: 24th December 2019
Title transferred: 29th January 2020
Time taken: 34 days

The court found this to be an outright breach of the agreement.

In the judge’s words:

“If a specific legal timeline governs the transfer of land, a transfer outside these parameters is an illegality or procedural impropriety that can lead to the title being challenged or cancelled.”

This was not a technical error.

It was the heart of the illegality.

When Section 26 of the Land Registration Act Comes Alive

The court then invoked one of the most powerful provisions in Kenyan land law:
Section 26 of the Land Registration Act.

It protects titles, but only until illegality appears.

A title can be cancelled if it was:

Obtained by fraud
Obtained by misrepresentation
Acquired illegally
Acquired un-procedurally
Acquired through a corrupt scheme

And crucially:

Even an innocent purchaser can lose a title if it was obtained illegally.

The court cited Elijah Makeri Nyangwra v Stephen Njuguna:

“The heavy import of Section 26(1)(b) is to remove protection from an innocent title holder if the title was obtained illegally or un-procedurally.”

In this case, the transfer before 90 days was illegal.

The title could not stand.