NOVISI ARYENE JA:
This is an appeal against the Judgment of the Land Division of the High Court Accra, dated 30 th January 2018, in which Plaintiff's claim was upheld and the Defendant's counterclaim dismissed. In this appeal, the parties will retain the titles used in the court below.
ANTECEDENTS
The parties are uterine siblings. Defendant is ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom (U.K) and the plaintiff is resident in Ghana. According to Plaintiff, sometime in 1990, while defendant was on a visit to Ghana with her exhusband, she expressed interest in acquiring landed property in Accra. Search for land in a suitable location was unsuccessful so before leaving for the United Kingdom, defendant gave plaintiff an
amount of one thousand eight hundred Pounds Sterling (£1,800) for the purchase of the land.
Plaintiff says he later found a bigger parcel of land at Dzorwulu going for GH¢3,750.00, which was in excess of the money defendant gave him. Upon discussions with defendant, they decided that he should go ahead and purchase the land by topping up with his own money and they agreed that the land would be divided between the two of them.
Plaintiff contends that defendant also pleaded with him for the indenture on the land to be prepared solely in her name to enable her utilize the document to obtain a loan from her Bankers in the United Kingdom. And that it was agreed that plaintiff's port ion of the land would be conveyed to him at a later date, after defendant had obtained the loan. Pursuant to this verbal agreement, the indenture and the receipt covering the land, were issued in the sole name of Defendant.
Plaintiff says on defendant's instructions, he commenced building a six bedroom house on Defendant's portion of the land with assurance from defendant of reimbursement. However, after spending £ 6,000.00 building defendant's house to lintel level, and defendant refusing to reimburse him, he stopped working on her house and concentrated on building a sixteen bedroom house on his portion of the land, while defendant engaged her brotherinlaw, Frederick Yeboah to continue her project.
Plaintiff contends that several calls made to Defendant to regularize the documents covering his portion of the land as agreed, went unheeded and in 2002, pursuant to the oral agreement, he conveyed title to himself. And that during the process of registering the land, he became aware that Defendant had registered the entire land in her name.
Plaintiff denied defenda
