The Bulawayo High Court has ordered a timber company to vacate industrial premises, bringing to an end a legal battle that has dragged on for more than 15 years.
In a ruling delivered by Justice Mpokiseng Dube under case HB 62/26, the court sided with Trots Investments (Pvt) Ltd in its eviction bid against Nyamunhu Dakarai Lazarus Mambiro, acting as executor of the late Lazarus Mambiro’s estate, trading as Mambiro Fibre and Timber Industries.
At the heart of the dispute is property at No 9 Welbeck Road, Thorngrove, Bulawayo, a site the timber firm has occupied for years without a valid lease from the current owner.
The saga began in 2011, when Trots Investments filed summons to reclaim the property under the rei vindicatio principle, a legal provision that lets rightful owners recover their assets from unlawful occupiers.
The defendant pushed back, claiming the company was originally a tenant of the late Edwin Eric Schwegmann and later the Schwegmann Family Trust and not Trots Investments.
They also argued they held a right of first refusal to buy the property, first documented in a 1997 lease and later allegedly reinforced by verbal promises.
But Dube ruled that the right of first refusal was a “personal right” that died with the original lease agreement and with the parties who made it.
“I am of the respectful view that such right is a personal right and, as contended by the plaintiff, it died with the death of the parties who made it,” the judge ruled.
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The court found no credible evidence that the right had been verbally extended beyond the original deal.
Dube underscored that Trots Investments has been the registered owner of the property since 2003 and is fully entitled to reclaim it.
The defendant’s argument that it qualified as a protected statutory tenant under commercial tenancy laws was also dismissed since no lease agreement ever existed between the timber firm and Trots Investments.
“It submits to logic therefore that the defendant is not a statutory tenant but rather an unlawful occupier,” the judgment read.
The court noted that even settlement efforts had failed.
In 2014, Trots Investments offered to sell the property to the defendant for US$48 500, the same price it had paid, but the deal collapsed after the buyer attached extra conditions, with Dube ruling that no “meeting of the minds” had been reached.
The court upheld a notice to vacate issued back in October 2010 and ordered the defendant to leave the premises within five days.
Should they refuse, the deputy sheriff will enforce the eviction.
The defendant was also ordered to pay legal costs.
