2016
SUPREME COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The Supreme Court of Ghana, per Ansah JSC, dismissed Lebanon Society’s appeal and affirmed the Court of Appeal and High Court in a long‑running land dispute at Teshie/Spintex Road. The plaintiff, Numo Adjei Kwanko II, Osabu and Ayiku Wulomo of Teshie and head of the Tsie We family, sought declaration of title over more than 100 acres, injunctions, and cancellation of the Society’s land certificate. The Society’s interest derived from a lease by the Nungua Stool to Moufid El‑Adas, later assigned to the Society. The trial court found the Society’s lease and certificate invalid, ordered rectification and cancellation of GA 1981 Vol. 02 Folio 233, and granted injunctions; the Court of Appeal unanimously affirmed. On further appeal, the Supreme Court held Section 59’s protection does not apply where fraud taints the acquisition and that purchasers must investigate their grantor’s title. The Court upheld findings that the land belongs to the Tsie We family, that the Nungua Stool lacked authority, applied nemo dat, rejected arguments that a sub‑lease could exceed a head lease, and sustained concurrent findings against a ‘weight of evidence’ challenge.
JUDGMENT
ANSAH JSC:
On 29-11-2016, this court dismissed the appeal brought against the judgment of the Court of Appeal dated 18 November 2013, and reserved our reasons for so ruling which we proceed to deliver now. The said Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal against the judgment of the High Court, Accra, given in favor of the plaintiff at the trial but the respondent in the appeal at the Court of Appeal and in this court.
Aggrieved by the judgment of the Court of Appeal, the first defendant appealed to this court on the grounds that:
“1 The judgment of the Court of Appeal is wrong because it completely flies in the face of the Land Title Registration Law and its underlying theory of getting rid of the necessity of investigating all over again the title of the vendor with its attendant doctrine of notice applicable under the land Registry Act each time the land or interest therein comes to be dealt with, once title to the land gets registered under the Land Title Registration Law.
2 The Court of Appeal committed error by rejecting the general principles governing the land title registration system counsel quoted because, in its opinion, they are principles from foreign authorities which do not bind it, regardless of their high persuasiveness.
3 The Court of Appeal misdirected itself in seeing nothing wrong with the plaintiff’s family seeking to rely on the alleged excess between the term of years granted to the Lebanon Society and the grantor’s own term of years as an element of fraud to challenge the Society’s registered title when there is no privity of state or interest existing between the family as landlord and the Society’s grant or as tenant in any way prejudiced by the grant.
4 The finding that the terms of years granted to the Society was in excess of the term of years the grantor himself held is against the weight of evidence.
5 The Court of Appeal misdirected itself in law when it failed to appreciate that the statutory declaration relied upon by the plaintiff as the root of his family’s title to the land in dispute is a mere self-serving document of title to land in dispute which can have no greater validity than a registered title to that land guaranteed by the state.
6 The statutory declaration relied upon as the root of the plaintiff’s title to the land in dispute is ultra vires and void since the declaration was made of a family land and not as land acquired by the law”.
On 21st January 2016 this court granted the 1st defendant a