Members of Urithi Housing Cooperative Society have been given a life dream after it issued 86 title deeds for its flagship Panorama Gardens gated community project located in Thika as efforts to revive stalled projects take shape.
The 86 are part of 200 title deeds that are currently being processed by the society through the Ministry of Lands, Urithi chairman Samuel Maina said during the handover ceremony on Sunday.
He said the title deeds are part of the about 540 parcels on the 104-acre land located along Gatanga Road next to Bahati Ridges and Golden Pearl Estate.
The issuance follows collaboration between the members of the project, the Sacco and Family Bank after the bank threatened to auction the land in 2019 over a Sh 315 million debt. The mother title for the land was the security on the loan facility.
Maina assured members that they are working on resuscitating many of their stalled projects to enable members own plots and homes.
He said in the last two years, the society has revived and completed nearly 40 projects adding that another 36 projects are set to be completed in the next one year.
The chairman attributed their crisis to the Covid-19 financial aftershocks, adding that they have now learned to work on few projects at a time and scaled down operations.
The members termed the journey torturous and frustrating but expressed satisfaction that their dream of finally owing title deeds has been met.
Their chairman Hilary Maingi Mbute said they even thought they had lost their investments.
The housing society has been battling negative publicity since 2019 when financial problems set in and creditors, including banks, started hovering over its estimated Sh6 billion worth of assets.
Once a formidable force in the real estate sector, Urithi faced a hard period with investors withholding monthly contributions and demanding refunds or the fulfillment of their investments.
In 2020, the High Court authorised Family Bank to auction the 104 acres of land owned by the cooperative to recover Sh315.1 million owed to it by the housing cooperative.
Maina said the Society will soon reach out to all the investors of other projects adding that in Utange houses in Mombasa, Juja Plains Annex, Rongai and others members are now occupying their homes in some of these projects.
“Those whose projects are yet to resume need to be patient as we ensure those who invested in Urithi get the benefits of the projects that they invested in,” he added.
By Muoki Charles
