LAMPTEY AND ANOTHER v. NEEQUAYE AND OTHERS

JUDGMENT OF CAMPBELL J.

The plaintiffs and the defendants are by Ga-Mashie customary law of intestate succession all members of the immediate family of Madam Amorkor Abbey, deceased, being respectively her children and uterine grandchildren through one Madam Koshie Lamptey deceased, a sister of the plaintiffs. On the evidence, apart from one Kotchou Neequaye, a younger sister of the defendants, there are no other persons who rank in the class of her immediate family. The present head of Madam Amorkor's wider family is one Tei Nortey who is a patrilineal cousin of the aforesaid Madam Amorkor.

The present dispute arises out of a house, No. 405 Kaneshie Estate, Accra, which the plaintiffs assert is the self-acquired property of their mother. They therefore claim a declaration to that effect also that they are entitled as against the defendants to succeed and inherit the said property, that they are entitled to the control and management of the house, to an account of rents and profits accruing therefrom from June 1962, the date of death of Madam Koshie Lamptey, to date of judgment; in addition they claim damages for trespass against the defendants, an order of ejectment against them and perpetual injunction restraining them from interfering with the premises.

The house in question was a rental unit allocated to Madam Amorkor in or about 1939 of which she died possessed on 26 July 1950. Subsequent to her death Madam Koshie Lamptey, her eldest daughter, exercised control and management and had her name substituted for Madam Amorkor in 1953 in order to exercise an option to acquire a permanent four bedroomed dwelling-house the construction of which was then contemplated by the Department of Housing in substitution for the temporary building then existing on the site. The permanent building was constructed somewhere between 1 November 1953 and April 1954 during which period vacant possession of the premises was delivered up to the Department of Housing; the keys of the reconstructed premises were handed over [p.260] on completion to Madam Koshie Lamptey on or about 6 May 1954. Subsequently in January 1956, in conformity with the conditions for the exercise by her of the option to acquire this permanent building, she executed a lease tendered in evidence as exhibit E wherein she undertook to pay off £G740 being the freehold purchase price of the premises in equal monthly instalments of £G3 18s. per month over 30 years and in fact down to the date of her death