2022
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
On appeal from the High Court’s dismissal of both parties’ claims and cancellation of both land title certificates, the Court of Appeal (per Dodoo JA) reheard the case and found the Appellant’s account more probable. The court credited corroborated oral and documentary evidence of a sale for GH¢21,000, including receipts and acknowledgment that rent was applied toward the price, and drew reasonable inferences that Professor V. K. Ablordeppey acted on Maxwell’s authority to receive payments and arrange documentation. Medical testimony confirmed stroke but was inconclusive as to Maxwell’s capacity, and the court refused to equate conjecture with legal inference. Conversely, the Respondents failed to prove the elements of a valid customary gift to Elvis (public ceremony, witnesses, libation, and aseda), and a Vesting Assent did not establish a gift. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, reinstated Konadu’s land title certificate (GA 28469), and affirmed cancellation of Elvis’s certificate (GA 31773), holding the land was not part of Maxwell’s estate.
DODOO, JA (MRS)
The Plaintiff/Appellant instituted suit against the Defendants/Respondents in an amended writ and statement of claim (see p. 432 of the Record of Appeal {ROA}) claiming the following reliefs:
i. A declaration of title to all that piece or parcel of land situate, lying and being at Kwashieman, Accra, bounded on the North-East by a proposed road measuring 70 feet more or less, on the South-West by a property of the Ahiaku family measuring 70 feet more or less, on the North West by a proposed road measuring 100 feet more or less and comprising an approximate area of 0.16 acre more or less.
ii. An order of injunction restraining the Defendants herein either by themselves, servants, agents, workmen of whatever description from entering the disputed land or to cause any further acts of trespass on the said land.
iii. An order for the cancellation of land title No. GA 31773 issued in the name of the 4th Defendant.
iv. An order for recovery of possession.
v. Damages for trespass.
It was the Plaintiff’s case that in 2007, he rented the disputed land from the Defendants’ late father. Two years later, the said late father sold the land to him at an agreed price of GH¢21,000.00. It was his case that the vendor became ill and instructed his brother, one V. K. Ablordeppey to receive the purchase price on his behalf. He stated that on his vendor’s demise, the Defendants entered onto the land that he was in possession of and that the 4th Defendant even claimed ownership of the land. He averred that it was during the pendency of the suit that the 4th Defendant applied for and obtained land title certificate asserting that the disputed land had been gifted to him by his father. The Plaintiff averred that the said land certificate was obtained by fraud which he particularized as follows:
i. That the said land certificate was procured without complying with the requirement for registration and acquisition of land title.
ii. The said certificate was obtained at a time when the matter was pending before the Honourable Court and at the time when there was an injunction restraining the Defendants from interfering with the disputed land.
iii. That the lease which gave birth to the 4th Defendant’s title certificate was also obtained during the pendency of the order of interlocutory injunction.
The Defendants in a joint statement of defence averred that the land had been given as a gift to the 4th Defendant as far back as 1995 and that the said 4th Defenda