The violence in Kenya is many things to many people. It is political upheaval to some, ethnic cleansing to others and something unexpected to most. However, the number of foreign holdings in the Kenyan property market at the time violence broke out is proof that it is also very worrying to many individual investors around the world.
With the murder of a Kenyan MP fuelling violence and the calls by many for the Kenyan army to be deployed in order to put a stop to the atrocities, it might seem to many property investors that the situation is only going to continue to spiral out of control. Many investors have already pulled out of the Kenyan property market and many others are frozen with indecision, unsure of what to do.
While the violence should discourage new investors from taking a closer look at the Kenyan property market (one of the reasons that the economy is projected to be hurt badly this year), there is one part of this tale that should give people currently invested in Kenyan property hope.
That part of the tale is quite simply that through the darkest times in the current struggle, the Kenyan judiciary has remained independent from the political upheaval.
In a previous article, the analysis of a property investment expert was discussed and the expert reached the conclusion in that article that as long as the judiciary remained independent in Kenya, that there was theoretically nothing to worry about in regards to ownership of property.
While the owners will certainly be required to absorb some of the damages (especially if their property was destroyed during the fighting), at the same time when the dust settles they will still own land that can do nothing but increase in value over the period of time following the end of violence in the country.
And the judiciary in Kenya has remained independent, even ferociously independent at times. The violence in the country has currently resulted in over 200 court cases in the country's judicial system, many of them specifically for the crime of destruction of property.
As long as the judiciary continues to remain independent of the political upheaval, property owners in the country will have something to hang their hats on.
