Ann Kanunu led Nairobi County will be charging city residents and property owners Sh500 non-refundable fee to raise objections to a new property valuation roll by City Hall.
Moreover, the residents will have 28 days to lodge objections with the Ann Kananu-led administration.
The development comes after City Hall called for submission of objections to the new valuation roll.
A valuation roll is a public legal document that consists of information on all rateable properties within the boundaries of a rating authority.
Currently, property owners pay land rates at 25 percent of the unimproved site value based on the 1980 valuation roll, which City Hall reckons has seen it lose on the appreciation of plots.
To cure this, the new draft valuation roll proposes the new rates to be based on between 0.1 and 0.115 percent of the current value of undeveloped land, setting stage for costly levies.
In a public notice on Monday, City Hall said the Nairobi City County Draft Valuation Roll is available for inspection at main City Hall ground floor as from 9am to 4pm from May 21 to June 18.
The new valuation roll has been in preparation since 2016. However, the document was finally tabled before the Nairobi County Assembly on May 2.
Those aggrieved by the either inclusion or omission of any ratable property in the draft valuation roll, or by any value ascribed have up to June 18 to forward their objections to the office of the County Secretary.
“Subsequently… any person generally …who is aggrieved…. may upon payment of a non-refundable fee of Sh500 only and on the prescribed form, lodge an objection with the County Secretary at any time before the expiration or 28 days from May 21, 2021,” reads in part the notice by acting County Secretary Jairus Musumba.
The residents or property owners can carry out the inspection or objection online via the county’s website or inspections done through Unstructured Supplementary Service Data short code of *235# and enquiries made through [email protected].
Last week, City Hall announced a schedule for input into the new property valuation during a public participation fora to be conducted on June 16, 2021 between 9am and 1pm across the 17 sub-Counties in Nairobi.
The public participation will inform the final of the percentage to be charged as rates on all rateable properties in the capital.
Land rates are one of the top five own source revenue earners for the county government.
However, City Hall raised Sh1.97 billion from land rates in the year to June 2019 against a target Sh4.84 billion, reflecting the defaults facing the income stream with the under-performance attributed to use of outdated rates record.
