A company linked to former Vice-President Moody Awori and the family of the late businessman Horatius Da Gama Rose has won a long-running legal battle over a 135-acre prime parcel of land in Karen valued more than Sh8 billion.

The Court of Appeal overturned an Environment and Land Court (ELC) judgment that had nullified all competing titles to the property and ordered the land to revert to the estate of its original owner, Arnold Bradley.

Appellate judges Patrick Kiage, Rachael Ngetich, and Stephen Radido held that Muchanga Investments Ltd had proved it was the lawful owner of the property and faulted the trial court for cancelling its title.

"We think the total sum of the evidence in this matter significantly and unerringly shows that the appellant is the legally registered owner of the suit property and we so find," the judges said.

The appellate court found that the ELC erred by invalidating Muchanga Investments' title solely because it had not produced an executed sale agreement for the property.

Instead, the judges said the evidence showed the company had remained in continuous possession of the land from the time it acquired it until the dispute was filed in court.

The court also relied on evidence from an investigator with the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), who testified during the trial that investigations established Muchanga Investments was the legal proprietor of the property.

The dispute centres on the vast Karen property, formerly known as L.R. No. 209/3586/3, which has been the subject of competing ownership claims stretching back several decades.

Muchanga directors

Muchanga Investments, whose directors included Mr Awori, his wife and Horatius Da Gama Rose, maintained that it bought the property from Barclays Bank (now Absa Bank) in 1983 for Sh1.25 million. The bank was acting as executor and trustee of Arnold Bradley's estate.

The company told the court that it had remained in uninterrupted possession of the land, paid all land rent and rates, and in 1985 obtained approvals to subdivide the property. It later cancelled the subdivision and surrendered the new grants and deed plans, restoring the land to its original status.

Muchanga further alleged that rival claimant Habenga Holdings fraudulently obtained a title in 1973 before transferring the property to Jina Enterprises in 1983, which later transferred it to Telesource.com Ltd in 1994, linked to businessman Josphat Konzolo.

According to the company, those transactions were illegal because they were founded on an invalid title.

Telesource denied the allegations, insisting it was the lawful owner after purchasing the land in a bona fide transaction that took several years to complete. The company argued that it had acquired valid title and was entitled to subdivide the property after obtaining all the necessary approvals.

Another claimant, Joseph Kangethe Wanyoike, who represented the estate of the late John Godhard Ichahuria Mburu, argued that the property formed part of Mr Mburu's estate. He alleged that Francis Da Gama Rose, then acting as the family's advocate, manipulated documents after Mr Mburu's death in 1981 to transfer the land to Muchanga Investments instead of the Public Trustee.

Mr Awori, who testified during the trial, told the court that he was a founding director of Muchanga Investments and that the company purchased the land in 1983.

Read: New twist in Awori, Konzolo firms’ land row

He said the company's board later resolved to charge the property to Barclays Bank to secure a Sh10.5 million loan for Da Gama Rose Investments Ltd, and the charge was discharged after the loan was repaid.

The High Court verdict

In March 2025 judgment, Justice Oscar Angote ruled that all titles issued after Arnold Bradley's death were tainted by fraud and ordered the Chief Land Registrar to cancel every title and all subdivisions created from the property.

The judge held that the evidence produced by Muchanga Investments was insufficient because the company or Barclays Bank did not produce the sale agreement, proof of payment or transfer documents to demonstrate a lawful purchase from Bradley's estate.

He further found that correspondence dating back to 1977 suggested that the intended purchaser may have been the late John Mburu rather than Muchanga Investments, and concluded that Francis Da Gama Rose had abused his position as an advocate in causing the property to be transferred to the company.

Although the judge acknowledged that Muchanga had occupied the land since 1983 and consistently paid land rates and rent, he ruled that possession alone could not cure defects in the company's title.

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