A room overlooking the Indian Ocean can come with a private balcony, a swimming pool and a sunbed. But does it come with a private beach?
For anyone planning a holiday at the Coast, the distinction matters. A hotel may advertise an exclusive beachfront experience, yet the shoreline outside its gates is governed by rules that extend beyond the interests of its guests.
Under Kenya’s Constitution, all land between the high and low water marks is public land. A hotel does not acquire exclusive ownership of that strip simply because its property faces the ocean. Getting to the beach, however, raises a separate question: which route are you entitled to use?
Where private property meets the public shore
Article 62 places the land between the high and low water marks under national government ownership, held in trust for the people and administered on their behalf by the National Land Commission.
This is the strip the tide covers and exposes. It is distinct from the hotel compound, neighbouring private plots and any separately reserved land above the high-water mark.
That distinction is important when assessing a “private beach” claim. A beachfront address does not, by itself, turn the adjoining public shoreline into part of a hotel’s property. Equally, deciding where a particular property legally ends requires survey records rather than the position of a fence or the water’s edge on one afternoon.
What a Malindi court said about sunbeds
A dispute in Malindi shows how easily exclusive hospitality can collide with public ownership.
In Chesubwa Limited v Yew Investments Ltd t/a Dorado Cottages Mld & another, the Environment and Land Court considered competing claims involving access to the shore and sunbeds placed on a public beach.
One property owner claimed exclusive rights over the adjoining beach. The other acknowledged placing portable sunbeds there for its guests.
Justice Oscar Angote rejected the idea that owning land beside the ocean gave the owner exclusive use of the shoreline. He also found that placing sunbeds on the public beach for guests, to the exclusion of the public, amounted to appropriation.
“All land between the high water mark and the low water mark belongs to the public,” the judge stated.
The September 2016 ruling issued an injunction pending determination of the suit. Its reasoning illustrates the central point: neither ownership of a neighbouring plot nor furniture placed on the sand automatically creates a private beach. It does not mean visitors are entitled to use a hotel’s sunbeds or other equipment.
Can you walk through a hotel to reach the sea?
Public ownership of the shore does not automatically create a right of passage through every adjoining private property.
The practical question is whether the route is a designated public access road, a reserved passage or a legally established right of way. A hotel entrance and a public beach access route are not necessarily the same thing.
The importance of those records emerged in the Shanzu dispute in Kiluwa Limited & another v Business Liaison Company Limited & 3 others.
In its August 2021 judgment, the Supreme Court allowed an appeal involving land carved out of a coastal reserve and obstruction of access to the ocean. The case demonstrates why a dispute over a wall or gate must be assessed against the legal status of the land beneath it.
A public passage cannot simply be treated as private because someone has enclosed it. But the existence of a public beach does not establish that every convenient path leading towards it is public.
What does the 60-metre rule mean?
The public shoreline and the coastal reserve are related, but different.
Regulation 110 of the Survey Regulations provides that, when unalienated government land fronting the coast is surveyed for allocation, a strip normally measuring at least 60 metres above the high-water mark should be reserved for government purposes. It allows a narrower reservation in specified circumstances.
The regulation defines the relevant high-water mark by reference to the mean high-water mark of spring tides. It is therefore not something a visitor can reliably establish by measuring from the waves.
In Kenya Wildlife Service v Sea Star Malindi Limited in 2025, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the protection of the coastal strip while directing a fresh evaluation of the evidence on liability in that particular dispute.
For residents, investors and visitors, the lesson is that a coastal boundary depends on the applicable law, survey documents and any lawful exemption. A fence alone does not settle it.
Does public ownership mean everything is free?
Public ownership does not remove conservation rules or make commercial services free.
Marine protected areas have entry requirements and restrictions. Kenya Wildlife Service lists conservation charges for marine parks, while boat trips and other services can carry separate costs. Visitors should check the rules for the particular destination and ask what any requested payment covers.
Paying for a boat, parking, a meal or equipment is a different transaction from purchasing a right to stand on public shoreline.
What to do if a beach route is blocked
Start by identifying precisely what is being denied: entry through private premises, use of an alleged public passage, or access along the shore.
Record the location, date and nature of the obstruction. Where safe, take photographs and ask which alternative public route is available.
For a disputed passage, seek confirmation from the county’s lands, planning or roads office and the relevant survey authorities. Suspected encroachment on public land can also be raised with the National Land Commission, whose mandate includes managing public land on behalf of national and county governments. Keep a written record of the complaint.
The question for Kenya’s Coast is both legal and practical. A beach can belong to the public on paper while remaining difficult to reach.
Protecting that public ownership requires something less glamorous than an ocean-view advertisement: clearly identified boundaries, recognised access routes and institutions willing to keep those routes open.
