50 high-end apartments in Kileleshwa owned by the retired African Inland Church (AIC) Bishop Silus Yego are set to be auctioned by Transnational Bank after he defaulted a loan worth 153 million shillings. All efforts to save the apartments have hit a dead end.
Bishop Yego had moved to the High Court to have Transnational Bank prevented from auctioning his apartments but the High Court rejected the application. Justice David Majanja said there were no new facts to enable the hearing of the case.
The retired Bishop wanted the court to compel the bank to suspend the auctioning of the property for at least 4 months to enable him to explore ways to repay the loan. The Court of Appeal also rejected his request last year forcing him to start afresh with the case.
Bishop Yego said he made several efforts to liquidate the debt by disposing of his other properties and making proposals but the lender had been unreasonable, hence denying him the right to redeem the property. He thinks the bank has a hidden agenda.
Court documents show that the retired clergyman borrowed Sh140 million from Transnational Bank in 2014 to construct 50 apartment units on the property. The project, however, ran into trouble after third parties who had committed to buy the apartments bolted.
Things got worse when Covid-19 hit making it impossible for him to get even a single tenant. His woes mirror those of many other investors who went into real estate with the hope of making a kill from the booming sector only for things to hit a dead end.
HassConsult, in its report, showed that land prices in Nairobi have remained sluggish with Kiambu County recording the largest drop in prices. In Nairobi, housing units also registered a slow uptake as the pandemic continues to sweep across.
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