Ethiopian Review

By Yohannes Anberbir | Capital Ethiopia

Horrified clients of a developer have discovered that Habitat New Flower Homes Real State Plc did not own some of the plots their homes have been built on.
In the past, the developer has been involved in disputes after failing to finish projects on time, but this is the first time this problem has arisen.
The situation has prompted 28 clients of Habitat to file legal papers asking for a ban on the transfer of title deeds to third parties. Kera District Area Civil Bench of the Federal First Instance Court examined the cases three weeks ago and passed a verdict in favour of Habitat’s clients. The ruling prohibited the transferring of the title deeds of 28 houses found in its Kaliti site to any third party who was not one of the original Habitat clients scheduled to become a homeowner.
Many of the developer’s clients have already paid a large proportion of the cost of the houses, with one individual paying around five million birr for two dwellings.
Habitat, established in 1993, has two construction sites in CMC area and Kaliti district.
The CMC site has more than 150 clients, who signed a contract six years ago with the developer. However, many of them are still in a dispute with Habitat, owing to its failure to handover the houses.
Likewise, the deadline to transfer houses at its Kaliti site clients has also already expired, with the developer facing repeated requests for the deeds.
The company responded through Tsegenet Abate, an individual who owns a stake in Habitat, according to some clients not willing to reveal their names.
“Nevertheless we continued asking Habitat because our agreement is with Habitat; we didn’t know her”, they told Capital.
Arbitration courts are responsible for settling these types of disputes, however, Capital has learnt that the developer is not going to take the case to arbitration. This refusal prompted clients to investigate secrets found in the hands of Tsgenet and identified that the land on which their homes have been constructed is owned by Tsgenet.
This led to panic and a decision to take the case to a normal court and to begin complaining to various government offices, including the Prime Minister’s.
Akaki Kaliti Distrikt knows that the land is owned by Tsegenet and that Habitat is the for contractor responsible to construct the houses, the head of land administration office of the district told Capital.
According to him, the district banned the transfer of title deeds of 28 houses following the court order.
Capital’s efforts to contact Habitat were unsuccessful.