Residents in Sh1b housing sale deal now cry foul

The owners of Red Hill estate in Ndenderu collectively paid about Sh1.3 billion to purchase 65 units. [Photo: Moses Omusula/standard]

Residents who bought housing units for Sh20 million each from developers in Kiambu have accused them of a raw deal.

The owners of Red Hill estate in Ndenderu collectively forked out about Sh1.3 billion to purchase 65 ‘state-of-the-art’ units.

The houses were developed by Joel Victorie Francois Peters and Dirk Willem Van der Linden.

However, some buyers are regretting purchasing them.

Led by their estate chairman Hussein Virani, the residents lamented that they have been forced to incur costs of up to Sh500,000 each on repairs as some bits of their houses are falling apart due to sub-standard construction materials.

Apart from drilling a borehole on their own as the estate has no piped water - despite that fact that the contractors promised running water - some residents were forced to erect perimeter walls, fence their homes and dig trenches to solve the problem of storm water.

“The borehole was just 230 metres deep instead of at least 350, so all it can pump is 1,000 litres in an hour when a good borehole should do 10,000 litres,” claimed Mr Virani.

Virani claimed that for two years, residents thought the electric fence was operational: “...only to have an electrician confirm it had never been commissioned, when we all along thought we were safe.”

He added that the wires were so low as to be reachable by children due to the low perimeter wall, which was a huge risk: “The wall was said to be at least 2.4 metres high in the plan but it was less,” he claimed.

He claimed that residents were forced to spend Sh6 million to drill another bore hole (330 metres) after the developer withdrew service amenities without prior warning in October last year. This saw the withdrawal of security, generator power and closure of the estate’s club house and swimming pool.

Our efforts to reach one of the contractors, who is allegedly based in Belgium, and their legal representative were futile as the contractor’s mobile phone was off, while that of his lawyer, a Jessica Mwenje, went unanswered.

The two parties had not responded to our text messages by the time we went to press.

According to a clause in the sales agreements, the developer was mandated to revert the ownership of the property to the community (residents) upon selling the last house.

Earlier, the estate was planned to have 70 houses: “But he added five more houses that have not been sold. This has taken up the space meant for a playground, jogging areas and footpaths. Some of us access our houses from the backdoor,” claimed a resident.

On their website, the developers say that the estate would be fitted with a gym and swimming pool.