2016
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case involves a property dispute where the plaintiff claimed ownership based on an expired sub-lease, challenging the defendants title deeds by questioning the name discrepancy. Both trial and appellate courts ruled for the defendant, who provided evidence of ownership and the name used at acquisition. The Supreme Court dismissed the plaintiffs appeal, affirming that evidence supported the defendants claim. Key principles addressed included the burden of proof, the necessity of written agreements for land transfer, and the legality of using a native name for property acquisition in the absence of fraud.
JUDGMENT
BENIN, JSC:-
This is one case which in our candid opinion should not have been embarked upon at all in the first place. The property in dispute is numbered O.T.B. 511, Block XXVI, Adum, Kumasi. The plaintiff/appellant/appellant, hereinafter called the plaintiff does not claim he owns the property in dispute by acquisition of the plot or by construction of the building thereon. He does not also claim the property by purchase or through inheritance. He claims the property because he is a sub-lessee whose sub-lease has expired so he has become the owner of the property unless the true owner thereof came forward to claim it. The defendant/respondent/respondent, hereinafter called the defendant, claims to be the true owner who acquired the plot in his native name and leased it to two named persons for a term of fifty years to build on it and occupy same for that duration. Also the defendant holds the title deeds to the property which he tendered at the trial court. Nonetheless the plaintiff insisted that the defendant was not the true owner because the name that he is known by is not the one which the title deeds bear. All this while, the plaintiff has not been able to identify any other person with the name on the title deeds. He has not alleged that the defendant obtained the title deeds by criminality bordering on fraud, theft, misrepresentation and what have you. In the absence of any such evidence, one would have thought that the person who has the title deeds and who was able to prove how he came to acquire the plot should be the owner as against every other person except somebody who can come forward to prove a superior title by way of acquisition of the plot and execution of the title deeds as well as the construction of the building on the plot. And that person is definitely not the plaintiff, who could not even produce evidence that he was sub-lessee of the property. Be that as it may, the plaintiff embarked on this case in the hope that the judicial system would confer ownership on him even when he did not have title deeds to the property just by leading evidence to show that the defendant is not known by the name on the title deeds. Indeed the plaintiff does not claim to have any inkling as to who the real owner of the plot is, or how the building was constructed by persons who did not own the plot. We would have dismissed this appeal in limine but for the fact that the plaintiff has raised some public policy considerations that we think