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 the lessee a way to extend the lease before it expires or to be granted a fresh one, on conditions, at a premium and at a revised rent. The Supreme Court held in April 2025 in the Ngara case, Sehmi v Tarabana, the position to be this. Once a lease expires with no extension registered the land has reverted, whatever the lessee applied for, so the time to act is while years remain, and five years is the figure the law itself uses. This article explains who holds a leasehold, when and where to apply, the documents, the money, how long it takes, what to do when the lease has already expired, and what changes for a foreign owner and for an apartment block.

Who this is for

You own a house in Parklands, a plot in Industrial Area, a flat in Kilimani or a beach plot in Nyali, and the title says leasehold, ninety-nine years from 1932, or from 1961, or from 1978. A buyer’s advocate has asked how many years are left. A bank has declined a loan because the lease is short. Or a notice from the National Land Commission or Nairobi City County has arrived, or a neighbour has received one, and you want to know whether you are about to lose the land. You are not, if you act. But the process is slower than it looks on paper, and the consequence of missing the date is severe, so the sooner you understand it the better.

What a leasehold is and why it expires

Most urban land in Kenya is leasehold. The colonial government granted town plots for ninety-nine years, and sometimes for shorter terms, and the practice continued after independence, so a great many titles in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Nakuru were granted between the 1920s and the 1980s. A ninety-nine year lease granted in 1928 expires in 2027. One granted in 1935 expires in 2034. This is why the notices have started, and why the National Land Commission published a notice on 22 June 2025 calling on every owner in Nairobi City County whose lease has expired or has five years or less to run to apply, and why Nairobi County repeated the warning in November 2025 with Pangani and Parklands named as the areas most affected.

A lease is a grant for a term. When the term ends the lessee’s interest ends with it and the land reverts to the lessor, which for public land is the national government or the county government, holding it through the National Land Commission. The house you built stays on the land, but the land is no longer yours. The Constitution adds one rule for foreigners. Under Article 65 a person who is not a citizen holds land only on a lease of ninety-nine years or less, and any longer term in a foreigner’s hands, including the old 999-year leases, has been a ninety-nine year lease since 27 August 2010.

What the Supreme Court decided in 2025

For years owners assumed an expired lease was a formality, because the Commissioner of Lands extended leases as a matter of routine and the family stayed on the land. The Supreme Court ended the assumption in Sehmi and another v Tarabana Company Limited and five others, Petition E033 of 2023, decided on 11 April 2025. The Sehmi family held a plot in Ngara on a lease granted in 1942 which expired in October 2001. They applied for an extension on 13 July 2001, three months before the date, and the application sat. Years later the plot was allocated to a third party, and in 2014 the family was evicted by force.

The Court held, at paragraph 80, the lease having expired, the land had reverted to the Government and was no longer a leasehold estate but government land, and, at paragraph 81, whatever remained to the family was at worst a tenancy at will and at best a mere equity. It declined to read section 13 of the Land Act as an automatic right of first refusal, because, it said at paragraph 88, such a reading would convert leases over public land into absolute ownership. The family won all the same, because the government had acknowledged and processed their application, so they had a legitimate expectation to have it considered fairly and answered within a reasonable time, and the fresh allocation to the third party, made over a pending application, was unlawful. The third party’s title was cancelled, and the family was declared entitled to the extension.

Two lessons follow. An expired lease is not a technicality, and a pending application is not a title. What saves an owner is a registered extension, and until the new lease is registered the owner’s position depends on the file, the acknowledgments and the follow-up. So the file must be built as though a court will read it, because one day it might.

Extension or renewal

The 2017 Rules use two words, and the difference matters. An extension adds years to the lease you hold, is applied for at any time before expiry, and takes effect from the last day of the current term, so nothing is lost and no surrender is required. A renewal is a fresh lease. It is applied for before expiry under rule 4, or after expiry under rule 5, and it comes with a new letter of allotment, a new term and, in practice, closer scrutiny. Both go through the same offices, on similar documents, and both end with a new lease at a revised rent. If your lease has years to run, apply for an extension. If it has already expired, you apply for a renewal, and you read the section on expired leases below.

When to apply

Section 13(1) of the Land Act requires the National Land Commission to notify you by registered mail, within the last five years of the term, of the expiry date and of your pre-emptive right to apply for the land, provided you are a Kenyan citizen and the land is not required for a public purpose. If you do not respond within a year the Commission publishes the notice in a newspaper, and rule 3 gives you six months from publication. Do not wait for the letter. The Commission holds files which are decades old, registered mail goes to addresses which changed in 1985, and the Sehmis applied three months before expiry and lost thirteen years. Apply once the lease has ten years or fewer to run, and in any event no later than five years before the date. A buyer’s bank in Nairobi will already be uneasy at fewer than twenty-five years, and a lease in its last decade is hard to sell at full value, which is reason enough to start early.

The process, step by step

1. Confirm the term. The expiry date is on the face of the grant or certificate of lease, counted from the commencement date in the title, not from the date of registration. Obtain a current official search, on Ardhisasa for a Nairobi parcel, which must be less than a month old when the application is lodged. Our guide to searching on Ardhisasa explains how.
2. Clear the rent and the rates. Rule 2(4) makes a clearance certificate for all land rent and land rates a condition of approval. Land rent is paid to the Ministry of Lands for national government leases and to the county for county leases, and rates go to the county. Arrears going back years are common and are settled, with any waiver the county is offering at the time, before the application goes in. Our article on Nairobi land rates explains the rating side.
3. Confirm compliance with the special conditions. The grant carries conditions, usually a user clause, a building covenant and a bar on subdivision without consent. Rule 2(4) requires evidence of compliance. Where the use has changed, say a Kilimani residence now let as offices, the change of user is regularised with the county first, because an application which reveals a breach invites a refusal.
4. Prepare the application. The form is LA 22 for an extension and LA 23 for a renewal, lodged in triplicate with a copy of the title and of the lease, the search, the clearance certificates, your identity card or passport and a passport photograph, and for a company the certificate of incorporation, a current CR12 showing the directors and shareholders, and a statement of their citizenship. Where the registered owner has died, the letters of administration or grant of probate and the confirmed grant go in with the application, and the estate applies through the personal representative.
5. Obtain the county’s planning input. In Nairobi the county’s lands and planning departments are asked to recommend, and the county asks for a planning brief prepared by a registered physical planner together with development permission on form PPA2 where the proposed use or development is not already approved. This is the slowest part of the process and the one most worth starting early.
6. Lodge with the National Land Commission. The application goes to the Commission, which checks it and, under rule 2(2), forwards it within seven days to the Cabinet Secretary for national government land or to the county executive member for lands for county land. In Nairobi the Commission sends it to the county executive member, whose approval returns to the Commission for processing. The decision is due within ninety days, and a refusal must be in writing with reasons.
7. Valuation, premium and rent. On approval the land is revalued by the government valuer, and the offer states the stand premium payable for the new term and the revised annual rent, both set from the value of the site without the buildings. The land is re-surveyed and geo-referenced where the survey is old. The premium is paid, and the new rent runs from the first day of the new term.
8. New lease, stamping and registration. The Ministry prepares the new lease or the extension instrument, you execute it, the Kenya Revenue Authority assesses stamp duty, and the instrument is registered. On Ardhisasa the new lease replaces the old register entry and the certificate of lease shows the new term. Only then are you safe.

What it costs

The largest item is the government’s stand premium, and it is the one no article is able to quote in advance, because it is fixed by the government valuer for each parcel from the unimproved value of the land. For a residential plot in Lavington or Parklands it runs to millions of shillings, and the revised annual rent, also set from the site value, is a multiple of the rent fixed in 1960. Around the premium sit the smaller items. The Ministry’s service charter lists rent determination as free and registration of the extension or renewal lease at one thousand shillings. Stamp duty is assessed by the Kenya Revenue Authority on the new instrument, on the rent reserved and at conveyance rates on any premium, and for a Nairobi parcel it is a figure to budget for rather than a formality. The county charges for the planning brief and the development permission, and the physical planner, the surveyor and, where the Ministry’s valuation is contested, a private valuer, charge professional fees. Our own fee for handling an extension from search to registered lease is fixed and quoted before we start, once we have seen the title and the search, and it is a fraction of the value the extension restores to the property.

How long it takes

The Rules say ninety days. The Supreme Court in Sehmi records an application which sat for twenty-four years. The truth in 2027 sits between the two. A clean application in Nairobi, with rent and rates clear, no breach of conditions and no planning issue, takes from nine to eighteen months from lodging to a registered lease, most of it in valuation, in the county’s recommendation and in the preparation of the new instrument. Where the application needs a change of user, a re-survey or a regularised development it takes longer, and where it has been lodged with no follow-up it takes forever. An application is followed up in writing every month, every letter is acknowledged, and the acknowledgments are kept, because they are the evidence which won the Ngara case.

If the lease has already expired

Do not sell, do not charge, and do not sit still. Rule 5 allows a renewal after expiry, on a fresh application on form LA 23 with the same documents, but the Commission is required to satisfy itself the renewal serves the public interest and fits national and county policy, and it inspects the land to see what stands on it. An owner in occupation, with the buildings intact and the rent and rates paid, who applies promptly, is in a strong position and is in practice renewed. An owner who has let the rates lapse, or whose land has been earmarked in the county’s spatial plan for a road, a school or a market, is not, and the government is entitled under rule 4 to decline for a public purpose, on notice, in which case nothing new is allowed to be built and the developments are inventoried. If the Commission has already allocated the land to someone else while your application was pending, Sehmi is the authority you go to court with, and quickly.

If the application is refused

Rule 7 gives you thirty days from the refusal to appeal to an ad hoc committee chaired by the Commission and drawn from the planners, the surveyors, the Law Society, the bankers and the private sector, which decides within sixty days. Its decision is binding on the Commission, and from there the road runs to the Environment and Land Court by judicial review or by petition, which is where a refusal given without reasons, or one which ignores a pending application, tends to be overturned.

Foreign owners and foreign-owned companies

The pre-emptive right in section 13 is expressed for Kenyan citizens. A foreigner, or a company with a foreign shareholder, has no statutory right of first refusal, and rule 2(4) caps the term so the unexpired years and the extension together do not exceed ninety-nine. In practice foreign-owned lessees in Nairobi are extended on the same documents, at the same premium and rent, with two additional questions asked, who owns the company and what the land is used for, which is why the CR12 and the citizenship statement matter. A diaspora Kenyan who has taken another citizenship should say so in the application rather than be found out from a passport later. And a foreign buyer looking at a Nairobi apartment on a lease with thirty years left should read the extension position before signing, because the buyer, not the seller, will be the one applying. Our guide for buyers abroad covers the wider checks.

Apartments and sectional titles

An apartment owner holds a unit title or a long-term sublease carved out of the block’s head lease. When the head lease expires every unit expires with it. The application is made by the management company or, after conversion, by the corporation of owners, on behalf of the whole building, and the premium and costs are shared in the proportions in the by-laws. This is also the reason the Sectional Properties Regulations refuse to convert a building whose head lease has fewer than twenty-one years to run. The extension goes in first, then the conversion. Our article on sectional title after the deadline explains the conversion side, and a buyer of a flat should read both.

Questions we are asked every week

What happens when a 99-year lease expires in Kenya?

The land reverts to the national or county government. The Supreme Court confirmed in Sehmi v Tarabana in April 2025 an expired lease leaves the former owner with at most a tenancy at will, so the extension must be applied for and registered before the date.

When should I apply to extend my lease?

The Land Act requires the National Land Commission to notify you within the last five years of the term. Apply as soon as ten years or fewer remain, and no later than five years before expiry, because the process takes from nine to eighteen months on a clean file and longer where planning or arrears must be sorted out first.

Who approves a lease extension in Kenya?

The application is lodged with the National Land Commission, which forwards it to the Cabinet Secretary for Lands for national government land or to the county executive member for lands for county land. In Nairobi the county’s recommendation is obtained and the Commission processes the approval.

How much does it cost to extend a lease in Kenya?

The stand premium and the revised annual rent are set by the government valuer from the unimproved value of the land and are the main cost, running to millions of shillings on a Nairobi residential plot. Registration is one thousand shillings, stamp duty is assessed on the new lease, and the planner, surveyor and advocate charge professional fees quoted in advance.

Is it possible to renew a lease which has already expired?

Yes, under rule 5 of the 2017 Rules, on form LA 23, subject to the Commission being satisfied the renewal is in the public interest and to an inspection of the land. An owner in occupation with rent and rates paid is in practice renewed. Apply at once, because the land is public land until the renewal is registered.

Are foreigners allowed to extend a lease in Kenya?

Yes, on the same documents, but with no statutory pre-emptive right and with the unexpired term and the extension together capped at ninety-nine years under Article 65 of the Constitution and rule 2(4).

Who applies for an apartment block?

The management company or the corporation of owners applies for the head lease on behalf of every unit, and the costs are shared. Where the head lease has fewer than twenty-one years left the extension is done before the units are converted to sectional titles.

Next step

Send us a copy of your title or lease and a recent search, by e-mail to peter@pmlaw.co.ke or WhatsApp through +254 714 644 080. We reply within one working day with the years remaining, whether an extension or a renewal applies, what your file needs before it is lodged, and a fixed fee. Nothing is charged until you instruct us.

Peter Maina is a Partner of Peter Maina & Company Advocates, Hazina Towers, Nairobi. He is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya practising in conveyancing and real estate, corporate and commercial, and capital markets law, and acts for owners, management companies and lenders on lease extensions and renewals in Nairobi and the coast.