Tenants Lament: The Rent Deposit That Will Never Be Refunded

Nairobi is a bustling city with many buildings serving different purposes. The famous ‘City in the Sun’ has numerous buildings ranging from business premises to rentals. Despite the many buildings in Nairobi, getting an apartment to rent is like setting out to climb Mount Kenya.

There are various challenges that a tenant faces in Nairobi to find a place to lay his or her head. These challenges include:

1. Con Artists. There are hundreds of conmen within Nairobi who mascaraed as landlords and agents but whose mission is to steal from the desperate and unsuspecting Nairobians looking for premises to rent.
2. Agents. One cannot find a house to rent within Nairobi without passing through agents. These are people who look for a house on your behalf after paying them a certain amount of money. In most cases, the fee ranges from 2000 shillings to more 15,000 shillings depending on the type of the house and the location. Those who pay the lowest are those seeking for houses out away from the Nairobi CBD with those paying highest being those looking for houses in the posh areas like Runda.
3. High rent prices. Landlords have realized that Kenyans are looking for houses to stay in and that they are desperate. They have taken the advantage of the situation to hike their rent. A small self-contained room goes for between 9000 to 12000 in the outskirts of Nairobi while as you move closer to the city, the rent increases from 15000.
4. Other challenges include insecurity (collapsing buildings as well as attacks from gangs), inadequate clean water as well as accessibility to the city.

The Deposit

There is a law that is cast in stone by the landlords within Nairobi. This is what I will call the law of deposit. This law dictates that ‘thou shall pay a deposit equal to a one-month rent or two months’ and in this silent law too, the deposit has to be refunded upon the tenant vacating the room or the tenant might decide to use the deposit and forfeit paying for that one month or two months.

What has become like a trend among landlords is that the deposit is rarely refunded whenever a tenant wants to move out of the house. Many tenants have complained that whenever they need their deposit to be refunded, landlords give them a string of excuses including coming up with imaginary repairs and claim that they used the deposit.

Most tenants are now living under the mercy of their landlords praying and hoping that by the time they will be moving out, there landlords will be kind enough to refund their initial deposits. The law is not clear on deposits. In fact, the law does not mention anything to do with deposits but only talks of rent.

Miss Samantha, a Law Student at Kenya School of Law says that “in matters of deposit, it is an agreement between the tenant and the landlord. The tenant, in order to be on, the safe side, should insist on a written agreement with clearly stated out terms and condition of the money being refunded upon vacation of the premise. With a signed document, if any party goes against them, it is easy to go to a court of law and defend yourself. Most landlords only mention about the deposit of the first rent receipt and majority of them are cunning, demanding for the first receipt before they give back your deposit. Keeping your first receipt that mentions the deposit is, therefore, as important as the agreement.”

As a tenant, therefor, in the event that the landlord asks you to pay a certain amount as deposit, insist on a written agreement to enable you be on the safe side in case of any treachery on the side of the landlord.

The Law

What does the law say about landlords and tenants? According to the Landlord and Tenant Bill of 2007, the following provisions are contained in:

In Part III, section 12, the Bill states that:

1. The rent payable for any premises shall be determined by mutual agreement of the parties to a tenancy agreement.
2. Where an agreement cannot be reached by the parties at any time during the tenancy, a Tribunal, on reference by either of the parties, shall determine the fair rent of the premises.
3. The comparable of similar lettings to be taken into consideration under subsection (2) shall not be more than two years older than the premises whose rent is under consideration.
4. Where there are no comparable of similar lettings to be taken into consideration under subsection (3), a Tribunal shall determine fair rent for any premises based on the depreciated replacement cost of the premises and the market value of the land.

Section 13 states the following:

1. A landlord shall not increase the rent charged to a tenant for a rented premise without giving the tenant at least ninety (90) days written notice of intention to do so.
2. The notice shall be in a prescribed form and must set out the:

1. landlord’s intention to increase the rent
2. (b) the amount of the new rent.

1. An increase in rent is void if the landlord has not given the notice required by this section.

Section 15. on the other hand, says that a landlord shall decrease the rent charged to a tenant if the landlord ceases to provide any prescribed service with respect to the tenant’s occupancy of the rental premises. (2) A decrease under subsection (1) must be proportionate to the decrease of the services while section 16 goes on to state that a tenant who does not give a landlord notice of termination of a tenancy under section 19 after receiving notice of an intended rent increase under section 13 is deemed to have accepted whatever rent increase would be allowed under this Act.