Author: Peter Maina
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Redundancy in Kenya: How to Do It Lawfully, and What EveryDeclared Employee Is Owed
In brief Redundancy is where employment law meets arithmetic. A role is no longer needed, the business must shrink or reorganise, and the law does not stand in the way of either, because no statute obliges a Kenyan employer to keep paying for work that no longer exists. What the law does instead is prescribe…
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Compensation for Unfair Dismissal in Kenya: How Much Would You Actually Get?
In brief Of all the questions an employment lawyer in Nairobi is asked, the commonest arrives within days of a dismissal and is admirably direct: how much would I actually get? The honest answer is more useful than the folklore, which has settled on the idea that an unfair dismissal is worth twelve months’ salary…
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The Employment Contract in Kenya: What the Law Requires, What It Implies, and What a Well-Drafted One Adds
In brief The employment contract is the most consequential commercial document most Kenyan businesses sign, and the one they spend the least on. A supplier agreement worth two hundred thousand shillings gets a lawyer; the hire who will handle the company’s money, customers and secrets for years gets a template somebody found online. This guide…
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Statutory Deductions in Kenya 2026: What Your Payslip Actually Pays, from Gross to Net
In brief Every month, millions of Kenyan payslips perform the same four subtractions, and remarkably few of the people on either side of them could say precisely what each one is, where it goes, or why the net figure is what it is. The answers are not trivia. An employer who gets the computation wrong…
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Commercial Lease Renewal and Controlled Tenancies: What Landlord and Tenant Must Do When the Lease Ends
In short, a commercial lease in Kenya ends in one of two worlds. If the tenancy is controlled under the Landlord and Tenant (Shops, Hotels and Catering Establishments) Act, Cap 301, which it is whenever the lease is unwritten, is written for five years or less, or is written for longer but lets the landlord…
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Selling Off-Plan in Kenya: What a Developer Must Have in Place Before Taking a Deposit
In short, Kenya has no off-plan statute and no escrow law, which means the developer who sells units before they exist is regulated by a patchwork, the Sectional Properties Act, 2020 on what must be handed to a buyer, the county, NEMA and the National Construction Authority on what must be approved before a spade…
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Kenya’s Trust Administration Act, 2026: What Changes on 25 September, and What Every Trustee Must Do Within Two Years
In brief If you have settled a family trust to hold your land and shares for your children, if you sit as a trustee of a school, a church, a foundation or a staff welfare fund, or if you are planning your estate and have been told that a trust is the answer, the law…
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Buying an Apartment in Nairobi: Off-Plan Risks, Share Certificates and Sectional Titles Explained
In short, an apartment in Kenya is held in one of three ways, and the difference decides what you own, whether a bank will lend on it and whether you will be able to sell it. A sectional title is a registered title to the unit itself and is what you should insist on. A…
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Your 99-Year Lease Is Running Out: How to Extend or Renew a Leasehold in Kenya
In short, a leasehold in Kenya is land held from the national or the county government for a fixed term, and when the term ends the land goes back to the government. It does not renew itself. Section 13 of the Land Act, 2012 and the Land (Extension and Renewal of Leases) Rules, 2017 give…
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Sectional Title After the Deadline: What an Unconverted Long-Term Sublease Is Worth Now, and How to Convert It
In short, the Sectional Properties Act, 2020 gave the owners of every registered long-term sublease over an apartment, flat, maisonette, townhouse or office two years from 28 December 2020 to convert it into a sectional title, and the two years ran out on 28 December 2022 with no extension. An unconverted sublease is not void…