DR. KWABENA N. RIVERSON _ ORS v. YAW SIAW ADDO
2004
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
- Lartey, J.A. (Presiding)
- Akoto-Bamfo, J.A.
- Dotse, J.A
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Evidence Law
- Civil Procedure
2004
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This appeal concerns ownership of commercial property at Agona Swedru between the administrators of the estate of the late Opanin Yaw Koranteng and the defendant, son of Opanin Kwame Addo. The plaintiffs maintained that Koranteng purchased the property from United Africa Company (UAC) and title was vested in him by a duly registered Deed of Assignment; Addo only managed the property and collected rents. The defendant contended Addo purchased and later gifted him the property, relying on receipts and an affidavit. Akoto-Bamfo J.A., applying the Evidence Decree’s civil standard of proof and reinforcing the conclusive effect of deeds and the parol evidence rule, found that the Deed of Assignment established Koranteng’s title and that the trial judge erred by requiring proof beyond reasonable doubt and by relying on extraneous evidence to undermine documentary proof. The Court of Appeal reversed the High Court, entering judgment for the plaintiffs for all reliefs. Lartey J.A. and Dotse J.A. concurred.
JUDGMENT
AKOTO-BAMFO J A.
On the 24th of October 2002, Woanyah, J. sitting at the High Court, Agona Swedru entered Judgment in favour of the defendant respondent hereafter referred to as the defendant against the plaintiffs appellants now simply referred to as the plaintiffs in an action commenced by them for these reliefs:
(a) A declaration of title to all that piece or parcel of land situate, lying and being at Agona Swedru in the Central Region of the Republic of Ghana.
(b) An order of accounts of all the rents received by the defendant in respect of the said property since March, 1999.
(c) An order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendant, his agents and assigns from interfering with the plaintiffs' peaceful enjoyment of the property.
(d) An order of recovery of possession of two stores occupied by the defendant on the property.
The plaintiffs' case as gleaned from the statement of claim accompanying the writ of summons was that they are the administrators of the estate of their father, Opanin Yaw Koranteng. That in his lifetime, he purchased a piece of land, the subject matter of the dispute together with buildings a thereon from the United African Company (UAC); that the transaction was evidenced by a Deed of Assignment executed by the UAC and Yaw Koranteng which Deed was duly registered; that Yaw Koranteng entrusted the care of the property to his elder brother, Kwame Addo, who collected rents, accounted to him and occupied a store on the premises for which he paid no rents.
According to them, their father exercised acts of ownership, receive rents in respect of the property and turned down a request by Opanin Kwame Addo to give a store he was occupying to the defendant. In spite of these, they claimed, the defendant did not only move occupy the store in question upon the death of his father, but additionally laid adverse claims to the property and instructed the tenants in occupation to pay rents to him without accounting to the plaintiffs. It is their case that such conduct constituted a denial of their title to the property.
In resisting the claim, the defendant averred that it was his father, Opanin Kwame Addo who 1st settled in Asamankese and subsequently invited his brother to join him in his trading activities; when his father moved to Agona Swedru; he left his store for his brother, Yaw Koranteng. In the course of time, Opanin Kwame Addo purchased the property in dispute, paid for it and was issued with a receipt; he therea