Every tycoon has their own story, including the struggles they had to go through to attain the wealth they have. Real estate tycoons have investments in properties and pieces of land to show as measures of wealth. However, they still have one thing that worries them.

A common worry that has had many looking for ways to solve has been the conservation of their legacies and inheritance after they are gone. In most cases, their wealth ends up in the court of law for arbitration. In some other cases, the properties end up in the hands of custodians after plundering them, the intended beneficiaries being left to drown in the pool of poverty.

In an interview with the Standard, one veteran by the name of Joseph Kaguthi said “Prominent worry that haunts many of us in wealthy club’s investments is how we will be succeeded once in the fullness of time we are seen no more.”

He said that the current trend points to a sarcastic transition passage when the dependants decided to inherit the properties left behind.

“If we were, to be honest, there is that nagging fear of how safe our investments will be once we are no more. We are told that we should write wills to manage that transition, yet, even those wills are being challenged in courts.”

After watching and hearing of various cases of property succession conflicts, the veteran said that most tycoons decided to form common platforms where they are free to share ideas on how to be certain of peace in their graves knowing they have control over their succession. 

He also stated some of the methodologies they had agreed on. . these methodologies include “leaving solid wills, making honest declarations, especially on spouses and children out of wedlock and counselling our children on the gains of peaceful successions”.

“There is no greater investment pain than to be alive witnessing what you single-handedly built through sacrifice and patience turning out to be fluid wealth being scrambled for by dependants,” he observed.

Recently in a local radio station, Chris Kirubi, the famous billionaire in Kenya noted that “dependants who know the pain of hard work will know the shame of plunder”.

He also added that the hard work that one does to own properties must be respected and “all these litigations be settled amicably where good faith is the guiding light”.

“We cannot tell an investor to cease building wealth since there is uncertainty ahead in the form of inheritance worries…As long as you do your best to distribute your wealth to the dependents, using the fairest method and ratio possible, you will have no control of what else might ensue. But I would urge peaceful transition of estates to dependants,” he said.

The entrepreneur and owner of both the  Nairobi Institute of Business and Technical Studies (NIBS-TC) and owner of the Kilimani-based Emory Hotel Ms Lizzie Wanyoike also had something to say on the matter. She said that she is convinced that will no longer guarantee the sustainability of investments.

“Dependants out to fight over inheritance will forever find a thousand and one issues to pick on in litigation. It can be based on equitability in how that inheritance was allocated to married daughters coming in to claim their share in the investments,” she says.

“The best way to settle this fear is by way of making those children part of the management and leaving the rest to God.”

She gave an example of her own three children and how they are part and parcel of her investments by inducting them into different levels of managerial duties in her properties.

“Such that, once that wealth is placed in their hands, they will be in a position to understand the need to progress my legacy into the future. The other thing is to try and bond the children so that they can develop mutual respect among themselves. Finally, you aspire to be very fair to all in the will where all will be deemed to have an equal share,” she says

Some of the familiar cases in court over property battles are that of the late Njenga Karume and the late Vice President Kijana Wamalwa.

Others are children of the late Hezbone Shimei Nyong’o – the father to Kisumu Governor Anyang Nyong’o.