Crowhill Farm (Pvt) (Ltd) owner Ozias Bvute has filed a notice of intention to defend himself in a court case in which Crowhill residents are challenging his decision compelling them to register with him as the new owner of the property.
By Staff Reporter
Bvute assumed ownership of the property early this year after securing a consent order with developer Cephas Msipa Jnr who had been selling residential stands since 2007.
After securing the order issued by High Court judge Justice Chinembiri Bhunu, the Crowhill farm owner has ordered residents to stop all construction work and pay $300 to register with him. He was arguing that the title deeds residents got from Msipa had been obtained fraudulently. This would be followed by revaluing of stands so that residents would pay the difference. The residents approached Tazorora Takunda Goto Musarurwa of Mambosasa Legal Practitioners to challenge Bvute’s orders, giving him 10 days to file a notice of opposition. In his application, Musarurwa argued that the consent order had a direct bearing on their rights yet the residents were never joined in the court application.
“The consent order entered into in case number HC7674/14 essentially means they do not have title and they have since been asked to buy their properties again or face eviction,” said Musarurwa in his application on behalf of “residents of Crowhill”.
But Bvute, in his notice of opposition, said the consent order gave him legal rights over the property and all residents in the property were living there illegally, and their houses were illegal structures.
“The advert flighted was an attempt to identify who the strangers and unlawful occupants on first respondent’s land are. The first respondent had deigned to notice that there were illegal structures cropping on its land. Therefore, the advert was an attempt to stop the mushrooming of another Soweto shanty township in one of the plushest suburbs of Harare,” said Bvute through his lawyers Manase and Manase.
“I reiterate that the first respondent only acts through its directors who neither authorised nor transacted any of the applicant’s clients. Therefore, they cannot seek relief from transactions which never occurred with the first respondent. They must approach whomever they transacted with for a remedy.”
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He said the rights of the residents were now subject to the court order and their “title deeds were susceptible to cancellation and those with certificates of registered title in the name of the first respondent are in unlawful possession of the 1st respondent’s property”.
Bvute said he had consulted the local authority and he was told that there were no structures that were ever approved to be built on the land.
“The court order per Honourable Bhunu J is still extant. The first respondent has every intention of enforcing the court order to the last word, letter and punctuation mark,” he said.
Part of Justice Bhunu’s order reads: “The first and second respondents, their employees, agents. Representatives and or anyone claiming and exercising any rights over the property in paragraph one of this order for and through them are ordered to immediately stop doing so. The first and second respondent are ordered to surrender the property in the paragraph one of this court and all developmental projects that they had in their control and to give vacant possession of them immediately upon the granting of this order.
“The first and second respondent and all those claiming rights and authority through them are ordered to cease forthwith any operation to do with Crowhill Properties Owners’ Association.”
Musarurwa is suing Crowhill Farm (Pvt) Limited as the first respondent, Crowhill Farms (Pvt) Limited (second respondent), Cephas Msipa (third respondent), Themba Hlongwane (fourth respondent), Registrar of Deeds (fifth respondent) and the Sheriff of Zimbabwe as the sixth respondent.
