The Sectional Properties Act in Kenya: An Apartment Owner's Plain-English Guide

If you own an apartment in Nairobi and you have not read your by-laws, you are not alone. Most owners sign at the lawyer's office, get the keys, and only encounter the rule book when something goes wrong: a noisy upstairs neighbour, a parking dispute, a special levy, a fight over the rooftop. The Sectional Properties Act of 2020 is the law that governs all of that. It replaced the older 1987 Act and reshaped how apartments and gated developments are owned, registered and run in Kenya. This plain-English guide to the sectional properties act Kenya apartment owners actually need to understand walks through what sectional title means, how the owners' corporation works, and the rights you may not realise you have.

The full text of the Sectional Properties Act 2020 is published on Kenya Law, and registry-related procedures sit with the Ministry of Lands. This guide pulls those rules into plain English for everyday apartment owners.

Why the 2020 Act Changed the Game

Before 2020, most apartment owners in Nairobi held what was effectively a long lease over their unit, with the freehold sitting somewhere else entirely, often with the developer or a holding company. That worked, but it left owners at one remove from the land their building stood on, and it complicated everything from financing to estate governance. The Sectional Properties Act of 2020, formally Act No. 21 of 2020, modernised the regime. It set out a clearer framework for splitting a building or development into individually owned units alongside shared common property, registering each owner's interest, and running the day-to-day affairs through a corporation of all the unit owners.

For apartment owners across Westlands, Kilimani, Lavington, Kileleshwa, Parklands, Karen, Runda and the wider satelite towns like Syokimau, Ruiru, Kitengela and Ngong, the practical effect is significant. You are not merely a tenant of a developer's holding entity any more. You are a registered owner of a defined piece of real estate, with a defined share of everything around it, and a defined voice in how it is managed.

What "Sectional Title" Actually Means

Sectional title is the legal way of describing three things that come together in one ownership package.

• Your unit. The specific apartment, townhouse or commercial space defined on the registered sectional plan, usually by reference to its internal walls, floor and ceiling.
• Your share of common property. The lobbies, corridors, lifts, roof, gardens, swimming pool, gym, parking access, perimeter wall, gate and the land underneath, expressed as a unit factor or share.
• Your membership of the corporation. The body made up of all the unit owners that owns and manages the common property and enforces the by-laws.

You can sell, mortgage, lease or bequeath your unit much like a freehold property, but anything you do with your unit also touches the common property and the other owners, which is why the by-laws and the corporation exist.

Conversion From Long Lease to Sectional Title

If your apartment was bought before the 2020 Act, or in a development that was registered under the older regime, you may still be holding a long-leasehold interest rather than a sectional title. The Act provides for conversion of those older arrangements into sectional title.

What the Process Looks Like in Practice

1. The developer or the existing management entity instructs a surveyor to prepare a sectional plan showing every unit and the common property.
2. The plan is approved by the relevant authorities and lodged with the Lands Registry.
3. Individual sectional certificates of title are issued for each unit.
4. The corporation is formed, by-laws are registered, and the management of the common property transfers to the owners.

Who Pays and How Long It Takes

Costs vary by development size and the state of the original records. Surveyor's fees, legal fees and registration costs are usually shared among unit owners, sometimes via the management company, sometimes via a one-off levy approved at a general meeting. Timelines depend heavily on how clean the original title and approvals are. Conversion is a project, not a form, and it deserves a project manager.

How the Corporation Works

Once an estate is registered under sectional title, all unit owners are automatically members of the corporation. The corporation is the legal owner of the common property and the contracting party for everything from the security firm to the lift maintenance contractor.

The corporation acts through directors, sometimes called the executive committee, elected by the owners. Directors handle day-to-day decisions, but the larger ones, including approving the annual budget, setting the service charge, raising special levies, and changing the by-laws, are reserved for general meetings of all the owners. Annual General Meetings are required, and Extraordinary General Meetings can be called when something material needs to be decided between AGMs.

By-Laws: The Rule Book You Should Read

Every corporation operates under a set of registered by-laws that typically cover use of the units, noise, pets, short-let activity, parking, alterations, signage, garbage handling and the procedure for general meetings. The Act sets out a default framework, and your specific by-laws either adopt those defaults or vary them within what the law allows. The by-laws are binding on every owner, every tenant and every visitor. If you have never read yours, ask the corporation secretary for a copy this week.

Common Areas, Maintenance and the Reserve Fund

The common property belongs to the corporation, and the cost of maintaining it falls on all owners through the service charge. That includes routine upkeep such as cleaning, gardening, security, lift servicing and common-area utilities, plus longer-term obligations such as exterior repainting, structural repairs, generator replacement and roof works.

Regulations require corporations to maintain proper accounts and, in most cases, build a reserve fund for major maintenance items so that owners are not blindsided by special levies. Insurance for the common property, including the structure of the building itself, is typically arranged centrally by the corporation rather than by each unit owner. Your own contents and any improvements inside the unit remain your responsibility.

Owner Rights You Probably Did Not Know About

The Act and the regulations give individual owners a meaningful set of tools, even when they are in the minority on the committee.

• Access to records. You can ask to see the audited accounts, the minutes of meetings, the register of owners, supplier contracts and the corporation's books, within reasonable arrangements.
• Calling an Extraordinary General Meeting. A defined group of owners, set out in the by-laws, can requisition an EGM, forcing an issue onto the agenda even if the directors would rather avoid it.
• Removing or replacing directors. Owners can vote out a non-performing committee at a general meeting following the procedure in the by-laws.
• Challenging unfair by-law amendments. Changes that prejudice owners unfairly can be challenged through the dispute resolution route the Act provides.
• Voting on the management contract. Whether the day-to-day running of the estate is given to a professional managing agent, and on what terms, is a decision that belongs to the owners through the corporation, not to a developer in perpetuity.

Where REAL Management Services Fits In

REAL Management Services has been managing residential blocks and gated developments across Nairobi since 1975, and we work with corporations under the sectional properties act Kenya regime every week. Our role typically combines three things: secretarial support for the corporation, including AGM and EGM facilitation, minutes, notices and statutory filings; financial management, including budgeting, service charge billing, supplier procurement and reserve fund stewardship; and operational management of the common property itself, from security and cleaning to lift, generator and grounds maintenance.

We also support corporations on the heavier moments: drafting or refreshing by-laws so they reflect how the estate actually lives today, running conversions from older lease structures into sectional title, mediating between owners and developers where unsold units complicate voting, and standing alongside committees in disputes that escalate beyond friendly resolution. Whether your block has eight units or two hundred, the same governance principles apply: clear rules, balanced budgets, transparent reporting, and meetings run the way the Act intends.

Speak to REAL Management Services

If you are buying an apartment, sitting on a residents' committee, or running a corporation that has outgrown its informal arrangements, the team at REAL Management Services can help. We have spent fifty years inside Nairobi's residential property market, and we know how to translate the Sectional Properties Act into a way of running an estate that owners actually trust.

Visit our property management services page for the full scope of what we do, see our residential estate management overview for how we work with corporations, or get in touch with our team for a tailored conversation about your block. We will read your by-laws, look at your accounts, and tell you what to fix first.