If you are in USA and planning to build a house in in Kenya, there are high chances of being scammed by relatives, friends and contractors. To avoid losing your money, these are the things to do:
Look for a time to visit Kenya during holidays and build your house during those times. Come and supervise your job without engaging anyone. In case you don’t complete the project when you visit Kenya, let it stop until you come another time.
Don’t allow anyone to buy construction materials for you. Look for people selling them, negotiate the price and buy the materials for yourself. If you allow relatives and friends to buy for you, they will scam you.
A relative will go and buy 1 lorry of concrete for Ksh 18,000 which has 10 tons, he will tell you that he purchased 14 tons for Ksh 25,000. You will lose Ksh 7,000 and 4 tons. It’s better to directly engage the supplier than using middlemen.
Family members and relatives may have other interests. Don’t trust them.
I have heard many cases of relatives squandering money for people living in USA.Someone is tasked to supervise construction work, instead of committing himself, he starts his own project through the construction money.
Don’t allow your fundi to identify a hardware to supply products to the site. It’s you to identify a reliable one. The fundi might collude with the hardware owner to defraud you money. They will tell you that they supplied 200 bags on cement but in the real sense, they supplied 150 bags only. They will share money for 50 bags of cement.
Site house and underground tank are important for construction. They will save you extra cost for water and material storage. Underground tank should be open it will cost Ksh 20,000 to Ksh 30,000 to build. Site house will cost Ksh 100,000 to Ksh 150,000.
In case you don’t have time to visit Kenya and supervise your work, look for a professional contractor to do the work. Negotiate the price of constructing the house and pay them in bits.
The professional contractor will deliver perfect work, they are better than relatives and friends.
When negotiating work and terms of pay with your fundi, don’t pay them daily. You should negotiate so as you pay fixed amount in stages. For example, agree to pay Ksh 200,000 once the foundation is complete, Ksh 200,000 up to the roof and Ksh 300,000 for finishing. You will buy materials yourself.
You should ensure that you get receipts for each of the products sold to you. These ones will help you in future to clarify some things.
Get all the required approvals before starting to build a house.If you fail to do so,the County government ,Nema and NCA might squeeze a lot of money from you.
