ADUMUA-BOSSMAN J. The judgment of the Municipal Court of Cape Coast, confirmed by the Magistrate's Court constituted by the Government Agent, cannot be supported on the grounds expressed by those courts, namely, that it is the administratrix to whom letters of administration have been granted by the Supreme Court (significantly enough, to administer the personal estate only of the deceased) who is the proper person to bring and maintain this action in respect of the self-acquired real property (a house) of the deceased and in respect of which he died intestate.
It is now settled law that a grant of letters of administration does not vest the real estate of the deceased in the administrator or administratrix, and that such real estate devolves, if the deceased be married under the provision of the Marriage Ordinance, c. 127 of 1951, upon the surviving widow, children and the family of the deceased together as tenants-in-common in certain shares-see Gorleku v. Gorlelm (1);. but if the deceased be not so married under the Marriage Ordinance, then, in accordance with native customary law, upon his family. But the question is, which family? It is clearly not the larger or wider family, of which the deceased was in his lifetime a member. So in the case of Mensah Larkai v. Amorlwr and Others (2), Sir George Deane C.J. pointed out as follows:
" Now the plaintiff has claimed this land as being the head of the Larkai family. Ahuru, it is true, was called Ahuru Larkai and it seems was a member of the Larkai family; but individually owned property of his would, on his death intestate, become the family property, not of the Larkai family, but of his own family."
By his amended writ or claim the plaintiff in this case claimed ,. As head for himself and on behalf of the other members of the Anona family of John Ayensu of Cape Coast." The plaintiff, however, in the course of cross-examination, had to admit that the late John Ayensu left a niece, one Mrs. l<'austina Daniels, to whom letters of administration have been granted to administer the personal estate of the deceased, and who obviously, not by virtue of the grant to her of letters of administration but rather by virtue of her relationship as a surviving uterine niece, would be the person entitled according to native customary law to succeed the deceased and administer his self-acquired property for herself and the deceased's immediate family, pg 360
2.e., all tracing through females from the deceased's mother,
