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Lakeside Estate welcomes Supreme Court ruling
The management of Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd (Lakeside Estate), a local private real estate company, has welcomed the landmark Supreme Court ruling that declared the company as the legal owner of 2,911.53 acres of lands located at Katamanso in the Greater Accra Region.
The said land is covered by Land Title Certificate No. TD 0513 duly granted by the Nungua Stool.
“Clearly, the judgment of the Supreme Court is a vindication of the quest for justice as has always been the driving force and heartbeat of the management of Lakeside Estate Ltd.
Suffice to say that the judgment is also the latest decision that has adumbrated and laid to rest the well-known principle on ‘bona fide purchaser for value without notice’,” the Managing Director of Lakeside Estate Ltd, Dr Prince-Joseph M. K. Ayiku, stated.
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In his New Year message during which he briefed staff of the company about the October 23, 2024 ruling, Dr Ayiku assured all homeowners and potential homeowners of Lakeside Estate’s desire through its lawyers to effectively enforce the judgment of the apex court.
That, he said, would ultimately result in identifying and weeding out all encroachers and trespassers of lands lawfully belonging to the Lakeside Estate Ltd — a gated community that provides first-class social amenities in the estate for the comfort of residents — with the view to making the place a paradise on earth for all homeowners.
In a unanimous decision, a five-member panel of the apex court, presided over by the Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, ruled that Lakeside Estate was the legal owner of the land, which it had legally registered and had a valid title to in accordance with the law.
The court consequently held that a sale of 0.29 acre of the portion of the land by Lakeside Estate to one Ibrahim Hudu and Suwayba Adam, two other appellants in the case, was valid and lawful.
Miscarriage of justice
The apex court gave the judgment after it upheld an appeal by Lakeside Estate and the other appellants, overturning a decision by the Court of Appeal which had earlier ruled in favour of Tassah Tapha Tassah, the respondent, as the lawful owner of the land.
The decision by the Supreme Court restored a decision by the High Court, which had ruled in favour of Lakeside Estate.
It was the considered view of the Supreme Court that the Court of Appeal’s decision constituted a grave miscarriage of justice because at the time Tassah acquired the land in 2004, Lakeside Estate was already the original owner as far back as 1974, which the respondent (Tassah) was fully aware of.
“The evidence on record confirms that the fifth appellant (Lakeside Estate) has a good title to the land in dispute and importantly, that at the time, Lands and Housing Ltd, the respondent's grantor, registered an interest in the land, the fifth appellant had a validly registered and subsisting adverse interest in the disputed land, notice of which was brought to the respondent,” the court held.
The unanimous decision of the court was authored by Justice Samuel Kwame Adibu-Asiedu, with Justices Mariama Owusu, Yaw Darko Asare and Richard Adjei-Frimpong as members.
Background
In December 2007, Tassah sued Lakeside Estate and the two other parties at the Accra High Court, seeking, among other reliefs, a declaration of title and recovery of possession of the 0.29 acre of land, which formed part of the 2,900 acres of land.
On November 13, 2020, the High Court dismissed the case on the basis that Tassah failed to conduct a proper investigation to ascertain the root of the title of the land; therefore, he could seek protection under bona fide purchaser for value without notice, the equity principle that protects buyers who are not aware that what they bought was already for another person.
Dissatisfied with the decision of the High Court, Tassah filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal.
On March 30, 2023, the Court of Appeal upheld his appeal and reversed the decision of the High Court.
The second highest court of the land held that the evidence on record showed that the appellant took substantive and satisfactory steps to investigate the title of the land and, therefore, he had acquired vested interests under the equity principle of bona fide purchaser for value without notice and should ,therefore, be protected.
Appeal
Lakeside Estate and the other parties were also dissatisfied with the decision of the Court of Appeal and further appealed to the Supreme Court.
In upholding the appeal, the Supreme Court held that evidence on record showed that a search conducted by Tassah in 2008 at the Lands Commission revealed that Agric Cattle Limited, which later became Lakeside Estate Limited, had title to the land from 1974.
The apex court held that the Court of Appeal wrongly made an inference that Lakeside Estate had no title to the land, which was probably due to the fact that the name on the search was Agric Cattle Limited.
However, the court further held that evidence on record also showed that Agric Cattle Limited changed its name to Agric Cattle Lakeside Estate in 1995.
In view of that, the Supreme Court held that Tassah had no basis to assume that Lakeside Estate had no title to the land during his search.
Writer’s email: emma.hawkson@graphic.com.gh