Evicted from NHC flats after 38 years

By AILEEN KWARAGU
FOUR families have been evicted from a property previously owned by the National Housing Corporation (NHC) following a Supreme Court decision that it was sold to a private buyer in 2015.
The property was sold to East West (1) Ltd by the NHC business arm National Housing Estate Ltd (NHEL) even though the corporation continued taking the rent from the tenants.
NHC managing director Henry Mokono said the eviction of the tenants on Wednesday from section 82 lot 13 Manu Autoport was through a decision made by court which could not be defended and the property was sold by the previous board and directors of NHEL.
“The decision has been made by a judiciary in favour of the purchaser,” he said.
“In fact, the decision to sell these properties was made in April 2011 based on ministerial directions following the former NHEL board,” he added.
He said they were not aware of the reasons behind the disposal of those properties but decisions were made.
“The evicted tenants had taken the matter to court but the matter was struck out last year,” he said.
Mokono said they had no way to defend the families affected but once they removed those tenants illegally occupying their properties, they would consider them.
“NHC would assist those affected if they had unoccupied flats in the city but unfortunately there are tenants occupying these properties without paying,” he said.
One of the evicted tenants George Lagot, who had been living there since 1984, said eviction notices was given last month but they took court action which was unsuccessful.
“We had lawyers who talked us into paying them to take our case to court but it was unsuccessful,” he said.
He said they had been paying a K350 per fortnight rent since signing the NHC tenancy variation advice which was not terminated before they were evicted.