RE ESTATE OF CANFOR (DECEASED) CANFOR v. KPODO AND ANOTHER
August 5, 1969
COURT OF APPEAL
CORAM
- AKUFO-ADDO C.J.
- Azu Crabbe
- Amissah JJ.A
Areas of Law
- Probate and Succession
- Property and Real Estate Law
August 5, 1969
COURT OF APPEAL
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
In a Ghanaian appeal concerning an intestate estate from the Anlo patrilineal community, the court addressed whether the deceased’s mother’s family or his children should inherit his self‑acquired property and receive letters of administration. The judge explained that the deceased’s connection to his mother’s family was relevant only to community status—establishing that he was an Anlo man—but did not alter succession rules. Applying Anlo customary law, the court held that the children of an Anlo man who dies intestate take the entire beneficial interest in the estate, and that the mother’s family are not the rightful successors. The court further clarified that families have no vested interest in the self‑acquired property of a member; any family interest is contingent and can be defeated by sale or will. It rejected any notion of an “undisposable portion” in Ghanaian law. The alleged appointment of the second respondent as successor conferred no beneficial interest. The children, being non‑minors, or their eldest, were proper grantees of letters of administration.
EXTRACTS FROM JUDGMENT: (1) “The fact that the deceased in the circumstances was a member of his mother’s family cannot, among the Anlo community, a patrilineal community, mean the same thing, at least for purposes of succession, as it means in a community status (and I prefer the term ‘community status’ to ‘tribal status’) from that of this mother, and that is all that his ‘membership’ of his mother’s family can mean. It means in effect that he was an Anlo man because his mother was Anlo. Having acquired the status of an Anlo man, succession to his property follows the usual Anlo law of succession which gives to the children of an Anlo man who dies intestate the entire beneficial interest in their deceased father’s estate [see Tamakloe v Attipoe (1951) D.C (Land0 ‘48-‘51, 378.] As the deceased was survived by his children there can be no justification in law or in any of the circumstances relating to this matter for pronouncing the mother’s family the rightful successors to the deceased’s estate. The alleged appointment of the second respondent as successor, if he was so appointed, does not operate to vest in him any beneficial interest in the estate.
If this appeal were to be determined by reference to customary law, I would have no hesitation in declaring the children, who on the evidence, are not minors, or the eldest of them, the proper persons entitled to a grant of letters of administration in respect of their deceased father’s estate.”
(2) “No family has a vested interest in the self-acquired property of a member of the family. The family’s interest in such property is essentially a contingent one, and depends for its vesting not only on the owner of the property dying intestate but also in the property being available at the time of the death of the owner. An owner of property which is not incumbered by any family claim has the unfettered right to do with his property as he wishes without any reference to the family [Yeboah v Tse, 3 WALR 300 at p. 301, per Ollennu J. (as he then was)]. He is always in a position effectively to prevent the family from taking any interest in his property by sale or gift in his lifetime of by making a will disposing of his property in its entirety and not giving any interest therein to the family. The law of Ghana knows no principle of ‘the undisposable portion’ of the estate of a deceased person.”