IN RE QUINTIN-COFIE (DECD.); QUINTIN-COFIE v. QUINTIN-COFIE AND ANOTHER

JUDGMENT OF CECILIA KORANTENG-ADDOW J.

On 15 October 1979, this court granted an application by the applicants and ordered joint letters of administration to issue. The applicants are all children of the deceased and the persons appointed by the family to succeed to the estate of their deceased father. The order for the grant was made subject to notices. While the notices were being posted, the third applicant filed a motion seeking an “order to strike out his name as the third applicant who sought to administer the estate . . .” He made this move because he said he had discovered that in the inventory exhibited with the application for the letters of administration his own house had been listed as forming part of his late father’s estate. This is house No. 275, West Korle Gonno Estate, Accra. He has applied to be relieved so that he can take steps against the estate to protect his interest in the house.

The motion has been resisted by the other successors on grounds firstly, that the procedure adopted to get his name struck out is wrong, and, secondly, that the motion is misconceived and brought male fide. Counsel for the two remaining successors argued that the applicant should have applied for revocation of the whole grant and that he cannot have his name merely struck out. Counsel also assailed the merits of the application. He contended that the applicant has bad faith because he could not possibly have acquired the house which he seeks to claim from the estate.

[p.920]

Order 60, r. 37 of the High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 1954 (L.N. 140A), provides that where an administration is applied for by one or some of next of kin only, the court shall require proof that notice of such application be given to the other next of kin. Consequent upon this rule, when an application for letters of administration is brought, since it is made ex parte, the court grants the application subject to notices being given to the other next of kin. In other words, on receipt of such an application, when the court is satisfied that all inquiries have been answered, it shall require that notice is given to the other next of kin that the applicant has applied for letters of administration, and that if no notice to prohibit the grant is lodged in the court within 21 days from date of posting, letters of administration will be granted to the applicant. If after the expiration of 21 days, no caveat has been entered, the judge sitting in chambers shall authorise the regi