Late tycoon’s children fail to agree on estate sharing mode
The children of a late prominent medical doctor in Eldoret Vincent Kiprotich Komurgor have failed to agree on how to share his estate estimated at Sh700 million more than 20 years since his demise.
Komurgor had properties that include hundreds of acres of agricultural land under maize and wheat and prime plots that are spread in three counties of Nandi, Uasin Gishu and Kakamega.
However, his children from his two widows Anne Kiprotich and Esther Cheboi who are both deceased are now embroiled in a vicious court battle over the distribution of the vast estate among themselves.
According to court documents, Grace Chepkogei, Ben Kimutai and David Kibet who are the petitioners in the succession matter are from the second of the late Esther Cheboi.
Inheritance court battle
The objectors in the inheritance court battle. Ignatius Rotich, Louis Rotich and Mark Rotich are children of the first house of the late Anne Kiprotich. Appearing before Eldoret High Court Judge Reuben Nyakundi yesterday,
Grace Chepkosgei said that despite being the biological children of the late doctor, their step siblings have refused to recognize them and went ahead to deny them inheritance of his estate.
She told the Judge that they are living like destitute after their step siblings evicted them from their father’s property in Langas estate along the Eldoret-Kapsabet highway.
“We do not have a place to call a home now after our step siblings forcibly ejected us from our late dad’s house in Langas estate and they have gone as far as excluding us from benefiting from his estate,” she said.
She accused their step siblings, led by Ignatius Rotich, Louis Rotich and Mark Rotich who are children of the first wife Anne Kiprotich, of treating them as strangers since the death of their father.
Chepkosgei produced in court as evidence backing her paternity test that was conducted at Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) that the deceased was her with a 99.9% accuracy. “My samples and that of my step brother Ignatius were extracted for DNA tests and the outcome showed that we are of the same father with a 99.9 percent accuracy,” she told the Judge.
Chepkosgei said that it was on these grounds that they were forced to move to the court 13 years ago and obtained a court order which revoked the grant of letters of administration that had been issued to their step siblings.
“We were raised together with our step siblings by their mother, something they deny vehemently to our shock and disbelief,” Chepkosgei told the court.
She added that their woes started after the death of their step sibling’s mother 15 years ago. His young brother David Kibet, said they stopped their step mother and one of her sons from administering the multi-million estate of the late father when they discovered that she had sidelined them from benefiting in the sharing of the properties.
“We moved to the court and obtained order revoking the grant of administration of our dad’s estate that had been given to our late step mother and her son Ignatius,” Kibet told the court. But in his rejoinder, the step siblings led by Ignatius, states that their purported step siblings were not beneficiaries of their father’s vast estate as they asked the court to order for investigations into their identities.
