STEPHEN DEI QUAYNOR v. A.J. KWAKU AND OTHERS
1950
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
- Wilson, C.J
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
- Contract Law
1950
HIGH COURT
GHANA
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
The case concerns an appeal against the dismissal of a suit for partition and a 2/3 share of property. The plaintiff based his claim on a deed of conveyance by A. E. Okantey, who sold the property as an Administrator. The appeal sought to determine whether the deed conveyed the entire property or only the vendor's share. The Court allowed extrinsic evidence to ascertain what property interest was conveyed. The appellate decision set aside the trial court’s dismissal and ordered further evidence to clarify the property interest in question.
Judgment:
This is an appeal from the judgment of the Ga Native Court "B" dated the 28th March, 1949, dismissing a suit by the plaintiff-appellant in which he claimed an Order for the partition of the property in dispute, House No. F. 341 at Christiansborg, Accra, and the handing over to him of 2/3 share therein and an account of the rents and profits of the said property and the payment to him of a 2/3 share thereof. He based his claim on a deed of conveyance dated the 25th April, 1939 (Exhibit “A"), hy which one Alfred Edmund Okantey purported to convey the said property to the plaintiff in consideration of the sum of £1020 s. 0d. for which sum the plaintiff is said to have purchased the property at an auction sale held on the 3rd April, 1939.
The vendor purported to sell the property in the capacity of Administrator of the estate of his deceased father S. R. Okantey and what he purported to sell and convey is to be seen from the following extract from the testatum or operative part of the deed:
"Now this Indenture witnesseth that ... the Vendor doth hereby grant and convey unto the Purchaser ... all that piece or parcel of land situate lying and being at Christiansborg ... together with all houses and other buildings erected thereon ... and all the estate right title interest claim and demand whatsoever of the said Vendor in to and upon the said premises and every part thereof to have and to hold the hereditaments and premises hereby granted and conveyed or expressed so to be unto and to the use of the Purchaser ..."
There is in fact nothing whatever in the deed to show that the vendor was purporting to deal with anything less than the whole of the property in question or with anything less than a whole interest in it. It is well settled law that if there is an ambiguity in the operative part of the deed it is permissible to look to the recitals for elucidation as to the extent of the interest intended to be conveyed (Halsbury; 2nd Ed. Vol. 10, paragraph 352 at page 283 and Odonkor & Anor. v. Ashawah Akoshia (1)). But in this instance there is nothing either in the operative part of the deed or in the recitals suggesting anything but a whole interest in the whole property.
It is common ground that in his personal, apart from his representative, capacity the vendor in fact had nothing more than a share in an undivided interest in two-thirds of the property held jointly with his mother and her other children by virtue of the provisions of Section 48 o