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The Day Your Silence Started Talking

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The Law You Live, Part 1 By Tim Munyi Mugo  A woman buys shoes in town. They pinch slightly, but the seller assures her that leather stretches, and leather has been making that promise since the invention of feet. She wears them to a wedding on Saturday, to church on Sunday, and to the office on Monday. By Wednesday one sole has separated from its shoe with a finality that suggests it was never truly committed. She returns to the shop. And here she meets a problem that has nothing to do with the sole. The Sale of Goods Act gives buyers a genuine right to reject goods that breach the contract. But that right has a shelf life, and it can be lost in three (3) ordinary ways, all of which the woman in the shoes has now managed to perform in a single week. You lose the right when you tell the seller you accept the goods. Simple enough, and rarely the problem. You lose it when you do something with the goods that only an owner could properly do . Wearing shoes to a wedding is s...
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Whose Cylinder Just Died?

By Tim Munyi Mugo, Advocate* You buy a gas cylinder at a shop in Kongowea. You pay in full, the seller thanks you warmly, and a boda rider straps the cylinder to the carrier with a rubber strap that has clearly seen two administrations. Somewhere between the shop and your gate, the strap decides it has done enough for one lifetime. The cylinder meets the tarmac. A crowd forms within seconds, as crowds do in this country, to offer commentary rather than assistance. You walk back to the shop. The seller is sympathetic but firm. The cylinder left his premises in perfect condition. You point out that you had not yet reached home. Both statements are true. Neither answers the only question that matters. At the moment that strap gave way, whose cylinder was it? This is one of the oldest questions in commercial law, and the Sale of Goods Act, Chapter 31, answers it with a principle that surprises almost everybody. Risk does not follow possession. Risk follows ownership. The Latin is r...
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What Kenyan courts actually require before family land becomes your land

  By Valarie ibalai There is a version of this story you have probably heard at every family gathering. A father moves land into an older sibling's name maybe because the younger one is still a minor, maybe just to keep things simple with the understanding that it will eventually pass down. Everyone grows up believing it is settled. Then the sibling holding the title refuses to transfer it or passes away and their spouse wants the rest of the family off the land. The advice that circulates at this point is always some version of the same thing: get a lawyer and get them to argue customary trust. It does not work like that, what most people call “customary trust” in conversation is actually two different legal claims wearing the same name and Kenyan courts do not treat them the same way. Two different trusts, often confused Classic customary trust is about ancestral land. A clan or family held land communally under African customary law before it was ever registered to an ...
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Your Landlord Cannot Legally Lock You Out- Even If You Owe Rent

Thousands of Kenyan tenants come home to find their locks changed, their belongings on the pavement, or their water and power cut off. Almost none of them know this is illegal, regardless of how much rent is owed. The Myth Most Tenants Believe Ask most Kenyans what happens if they fall behind on rent, and they’ll assume the landlord has every right to lock them out, seize their property, or cut their utilities until they pay up or leave. It feels like common sense, it’s the landlord’s property, after all. It is also flatly wrong. Kenyan law draws a hard line between a landlord’s right to be paid and a landlord’s right to enforce that payment personally. The moment a landlord takes matters i nto their own hands, instead of going through the courts, they cross from being owed money to committing an offence. “Self-Help” Eviction Is Illegal, No Matter the Reason! Kenyan law does not permit landlords to act as judge, jury, and enforcer in their own dispute. Changing the locks wh...
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