AN 84-year-old widow has successfully challenged her eviction from her Torwood house over unpaid council rates arguing that the property did not belong to Redcliff Municipality, but to her late husband’s ex-employer, Ziscosteel.
BY BLESSED MHLANGA
Utaba Imana challenged her eviction in an ex-parte application (an urgent application where requiring notice is waived because it would subject one party to irreparable harm) filed at the Kwekwe Magistrates’ Court on Saturday following her eviction from her home of 35 years.
Magistrate Vimbai Mutukwa who presided over the matter rescinded the eviction order and allowed Imana to reoccupy her house until finalisation of the court case. Imana was among 18 families who were evicted last Thursday over the rates arrears.
Today, 21 other families are set to be kicked out of their houses over the same issue as the local authority threatens to evict 820 residents over outstanding rates bills.
“The first respondent (Redcliff Municipality) is not the owner of the house in which I am staying. The house belongs to Ziscosteel and the respondent does not or at all enjoy the right to evict me from the same,” Imana said in her application.
“The respondent lacks any locus standi at law to evict my late husband or myself as we do not have a valid contractual agreement between us.”
Imana, who shed tears when she was ejected from her house by the Messenger of Court based on a default judgment last Thursday, further accused council lawyers, Wilmot and Bennet, of taking advantage of her age and lack of understanding of the law to mislead her so as to “snatch” judgments from the court.
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“I submit that my failure to defend was not at all wilful in the said circumstances as I was misinformed by the lawyers representing the respondent when I engaged them. Now I know they pretended to understand me just to let my time expire so that they could snatch a judgment as they now did,” she argued.
The other affected families, mostly Ziscosteel employees, have reportedly failed to raise the $48 required to file their own ex-parte application.
However, Redcliff mayor Freddy Kapuya yesterday insisted that the council would not relent until all debts have been paid.
