A SECURE TITLE DEED REGISTRATION MODEL FOR LAND TRANSACTIONS IN KENYA BASED ON BLOCKCHAIN

Abstract

Land is a basic need that every individual aspires to own. To have control over Land is associated with economic power which is the basis for both social as well as political influence in Kenya. However, there exist persistent challenges, usually attributed to the processes involved in Land registration and Land transactions for Land ownership. The non-existence of a universal National Land Information Management System (NLIMS) in Kenya has become the genesis of occasioned perennial conflicts relating to the proof of Land ownership burden on any land dealership. Fraudulent Land registration and transaction activities (Land grabbing) are reportedly being executed almost on a daily basis in Kenya and more often, these kind of transactions result in an endless protracted emotive Land cases in Courts. It is in the view of the aforementioned challenges that the study embarked on a mission of designing a secure title deed registration model for Land transactions in Kenya based on Blockchain, a secure technology with the potential of simplifying the execution of authentic Land registration and transaction processes across the Lands registry in Kenya. To achieve its research objective, the study examined the integration of Land transactions into Blockchain with the aim of creating a secure and transparent environment that guarantees the much needed confidentiality and integrity of Land transactions. Design Science research methodology was adopted by the research to provide an overall scope in the model design and development requirements while the Proof of Concept (PoC) research methodology was used to design and develop the essential modules for the model. The research employed subjective sampling to select users to perform a criteria-based model evaluation approach against the evaluation metrics (persistence, time-stamping, transparency and decentralization) set out by the study. Likert scale tool was adopted by the study to capture the user feedback during the model evaluation process. Results were presented in form of a descriptive summary of the users‘ feedback. From the results, the study established that the model could effectively execute immutable, time-stamped, transparent and decentralized land registration and land transaction processes that can be used as the basis upon which an authentic proof of land ownership burden can be founded. The study recommends that future research may focus on the prospect of integrating Blockchain with Land taxation systems as well as the adoption of crypto currency as a legal tender to facilitate the execution of smart contracts for properties in Kenya.