2017
COURT OF APPEAL
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
This Court of Appeal case concerns competing claims to land at Osu, Accra. The plaintiff asserted a 1983 grant from the Osu Stool and long occupation, later perfecting an indenture in 2009, while defendant Richard Nortey Otoo relied on his predecessor Edward Kabu Otoos 1939 acquisition and 1940 registration over a larger tract that included the disputed plot. The High Court dismissed the plaintiffs declaration and expungement claims but refused the defendants recovery/injunction and awarded trespass damages. On appeal and cross-appeal, the Court of Appeal treated the matter as a rehearing. The majority, authored by V. D. Ofoe J.A and concurred by Irene Charity Larbi J.A, held that although nemo dat barred the stools later grant, equity applied: the plaintiff developed under an honest but mistaken belief while the defendant and family passively stood by after 2009. The court granted the plaintiff a declaration of title, directed the Lands Commission to expunge the defendants name for the plot, and set aside the GH5,000 trespass award. Cecilia Sowah J.A dissented, finding acquiescence unmet and emphasizing actual notice and lack of diligence.
JUDGMENT
OFOE, J.A:
Plaintiff claims against the defendant a declaration of title to land he described as follows:
“a. A declaration of title to all that piece or parcel of land with building thereon containing an approximate area of 0.35 acre (o.14 hectare) situate at Osu-Accra and bounded on the North-East by a road measuring 187.4 feet more or less on the North-West by stool land measuring 96.8 feet more or less on the South-East by Osu stool land measuring 192.9 and 71.3 feet more or less respectively or and on the South-East by Osu stool land measuring 70.6 feet and 30.9 feet more or less which piece or parcel of land is more particularly described in Lease document dated 20th November2009 indexed at the Lands Commission as No. AR 1206/2010 and being processed on Lands Commission file No. 32000/243/2010.
b. An order directed at the Regional Lands Officer to delete from its records any transactions in the names of 1st and 2nd Defendants to enable the Lands Commission process his document currently pending with the Lands Commission”.
Before I proceed let me straighten up the records on the parties in this suit. The original defendants were Edward Kabu Otoo and Richard Nortey Otoo as 1st defendant and 2nd defendants respectively. The plaintiff who sued them did not know that Edward Kabu Otto had died as far back as 1944. When this came to the knowledge of the court he was struck out as a party and Richard Nortey Otoo became the 1st defendant.
The case of the plaintiff. He claims he bought the disputed land from the Osu stool in 1983 and started building thereon the same year. He is firm in his evidence that when he bought the land the grantors asked him to build while they prepared for him the deed of conveyance. He built 4 bed room house on the land and has been in occupation since 1983. The stool gave him the indenture in 2009. It was subsequently when he sought to register the land that it was brought to his attention that the land was registered in the name of Edward Kabu, the 1st defendant’s father as far back as 1940. From 1983 when he built the house to the date he visited the Lands Commission and sought to register the land, plaintiff admitted, was about 20 years. It was clear in his evidence that it was when he went to the Lands omission to register the land that he was confronted with the name of Edward Kabu Otoo as proprietor of this land. As to the state of the land before he bought and built on it plaintiff maintained that it was bare