It has emerged that individuals who own land in Nakuru County are paying more than they should due to wrong land rates.
The County Assembly's Committee on Lands, Housing and Physical Planning in a report revealed that residents in Nakuru have been paying irregular and exorbitant land rates.
Committee Chairman Stephen Ngethe said that the county government has been using the old and obsolete valuation roll to charge property owners.
The county government is supposed to revise the valuation roll every five years but the last review was in 2005.
Property owners and those renting space have been forced to dig deeper into their pockets because the county government had not updated its valuation roll.
It was further revealed that rates kept varying over the past years and alarmingly shot up in 2011 leading to high property taxes.
“The rates subjected to Nakuru Municipality Block 3 owners were unlawful. They also lacked clear legislation on valuation and rating to guide them. We are staring at a disaster should all Nakuru residents go to court and challenge the current rates,” said Ngethe as quoted by the Standard.
“For a 50 by 100 plot, the landlords paid Sh3,000 in 1989, Sh5,000 in 1990 and Sh7,000 in 2007 annually. How the rates for the same parcels shot to Sh83,500 in 2011 is suspect?” he added.
The committee questioned why different commercial plots of the same size in the same block are being charged different rates.
“Nakuru Happy Church, which sits on half an acre, has been paying annual land rates of Sh6,006 while New Life Church, which sits on a smaller plot, paid Sh108,120. This is abnormal since they are both in Municipality block 3,” Ngethe said.