The story of land ownership in Kenya is full of controversy, but few names appear as often in ugly disputes as that of Guy Spencer Elms.
Time and again, he has been linked to cases where the wealth of the dead is dragged into court through claims of questionable wills and forged documents.
His latest battle involves the estate of billionaire Pritam Singh Panesar, who died in 2018 leaving behind vast properties including a valuable 53-acre beachfront parcel in Kwale. Instead of peace being found, the fight over his land has turned into yet another scandal with Elms at the centre.
In this case, Elms and businessman Nileshkumar Shah have been pushing to be recognised as executors of Panesar’s estate through a will that investigators say is deeply suspicious.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations assigned a forensic expert, Alex Mwongera, to examine the signature on the will. His conclusion was damning.
The signature did not match Panesar’s authentic signature on his national ID. Mwongera pointed out that the strokes, the style, the speed of writing, and even the way the pen lifted from the paper were completely different.
Another independent examiner, Emmanuel Karisa Kenga, reached the same conclusion after comparing the will with nine genuine documents signed by Panesar. He called the differences glaring.
For a lawyer like Elms, who should know the importance of authenticity in legal documents, being associated with such a forgery places him in very dark light. The scandal does not stop there.
An affidavit sworn by Henry Philip Nyabuto revealed that he had been approached to create a fake Green Card to help grab the Kwale land. Nyabuto openly admitted he was paid to forge the registry document and named Wilson Gichuhi, a retired police officer, as the man who reached out to him on Elms’s behalf.
To make his case stronger, he even attached an M-Pesa statement showing he received ten thousand shillings on January 21, 2022, from a number linked to Gichuhi. This kind of testimony paints a picture of deliberate fraud, not just legal wrangling.
What makes the matter worse is that the land had already been ruled on by the Environment and Land Court in Kwale in 2022.
Three men Mohammed Ruwa Maridadi, Anthony Michael Mwanza Mulwa, and Ahmed Ouma Randa were declared rightful owners through adverse possession.
They had been living on the land for more than a decade, building houses, sinking boreholes, and planting trees. Their occupation was recognised by the court as genuine ownership.
But Elms and Shah appealed and had the ruling overturned, claiming authority as executors. By pushing aside the long-term occupants, they showed how determined they were to hold onto a questionable will, even after evidence of forgery had already been presented.
This is not even the first time Elms has been accused of the same tactics. For almost ten years he was in the spotlight over the will of British tycoon Roger Bryan Robson, whose Karen property worth over one hundred million shillings was allegedly targeted through forged documents.
That case was dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions, raising eyebrows about why such serious charges could vanish after dragging on for so long.
Now the same name is back, tied to another scandal that looks strikingly similar.
Guy Spencer Elms presents himself as a lawyer, but his trail is filled with controversies that suggest something much darker.
Instead of fighting for justice, he is accused of exploiting the dead and twisting legal systems to seize properties that do not belong to him. With repeated allegations of forgery and fraud surrounding his work, his reputation has become one of greed and manipulation.
For many watching the Panesar case unfold, it is clear that Elms is not simply caught in misunderstandings. He has become a notorious figure whose name is now inseparable from scandal in the world of land disputes.
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