For years, the family of the late John Amboga Embalo lived quietly on separate pieces of land allocated by their patriarch before his death.
One family occupied a vast parcel in Nzoia, while the other settled on a smaller 10-acre property in Lugari. The arrangement appeared settled, accepted and uncontested.
But decades later, a son from the second house returned to court seeking a fresh share of the estate, setting the stage for a family inheritance dispute that would force a judge to ask a simple question: Where had he been all those years?
The answer, according to court records, lay in eight acres of land that had long since changed hands.
Last week, the High Court in Kitale dismissed an attempt by Johnstone Amboga Embalo to revoke a grant issued in 2005 in respect of the estate of his late father, John Amboga Embalo.
The ruling brought to a close the latest chapter of a succession dispute rooted in the complex dynamics of a polygamous family and the enduring value of land.
According to evidence presented in court, the deceased had settled the two families on separate parcels of land during his lifetime. The first house, headed by Ms Feba, was established on Kakamega/Nzoia/73, while the second house, led by Rose Mideva, occupied Kakamega/Lugari/158.
For years after the patriarch's death, both families remained on their respective portions.
Then, in 2024, nearly two decades after the succession process had been completed, Johnstone moved to court seeking to overturn the grant that had allowed his stepmother to administer the estate.
He alleged that important beneficiaries had been left out of the succession proceedings and that some properties had not been disclosed to the court.
He further claimed that members of his mother's household had not been informed about the succession proceedings and had therefore been denied an opportunity to participate.
According to him, the second house ended up with only 10 acres while the first house retained approximately 70 acres.
But as the hearing progressed, a crucial detail emerged.
Under cross-examination, Johnstone admitted that the second house had indeed received 10 acres from the estate.
More significantly, he acknowledged that he had sold eight of those acres. The revelation appeared to fundamentally alter the character of the dispute.
To the respondent, Ms Feba, the matter was straightforward.
She told the court that the deceased had already settled each wife on her own parcel during his lifetime and that the arrangement had been respected by all concerned.
She said she had preserved the land allocated to her family while the applicant had disposed of most of the property allocated to his side.
The widow expressed surprise that after selling the land available to him, the applicant had resurfaced seeking a share of the property occupied by the first house.
In a strongly worded ruling, the judge noted that the applicant had failed to produce evidence supporting claims of fraud, concealment or misrepresentation.
The court observed that both households had lived according to the arrangement established by the deceased and that the applicant's own mother never challenged it during her lifetime.
The judge found it telling that the succession dispute was being raised many years after the estate had effectively been settled.
"It is apparent that after disposing of the eight acres, for reasons best known to him, the applicant approached this court for revocation of grant as an afterthought," the judge said.
The court also questioned why the challenge was being mounted 23 years after the grant had been issued and long after the parties had settled into their respective portions.
In the judge's view, reopening the matter would unfairly interfere with the rights of beneficiaries who had preserved their inheritance while others had chosen to sell theirs.
The court further rejected claims that two parcels of land in North Maragoli formed part of the deceased's estate, finding that no evidence had been presented to support that assertion.
With those findings, the application was dismissed.
Behind the legal arguments, however, lies a familiar story repeated across many Kenyan families — one where inherited land is sold, fortunes change and relatives return to court hoping to reopen settlements reached years earlier.
For the Embalo family, the High Court's message was clear: inheritance disputes cannot be revived indefinitely, especially when a claimant has already disposed of the share he once received.
And for one son, the sale of eight acres decades ago ultimately became the fact that defined the outcome of his fight for a larger piece of his father's estate.
