Dar es Salaam. Former Rungwe lawmaker Sauli Henry Amon is no longer the owner of a multi-billion eight-storey building at Kariakoo after the Court of Appeal declared
that the land on which the property stands was acquired illegally during an auction.The top court has decided that the piece of land at Congo and Mchikichi streets belongs to the family of the late Bushiri Pazi, that has, for the last 20 years, been engaged in a court battle to regain possesson of the property.
Amon bought the land in May, 2001 during an action after the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court ordered the sale of the house following a dispute between Mzee Pazi’s daughter, Tatu Pazi, and a tenant.
Five children of the late Pazi had gone to the Court of Appeal to challenge decision of the High Court that had dismissed a case in which they were challenging decision of quasi-judicial bodies that had refused to declare them rightful owners of the property.
Initially, small muddy house stood on the disputed land but was later improved after the five appellants entered into a joint venture agreement with a businessman who was to build a new modern structure.
As the deal was sealed, it happened that Tatu, who owned a room in the muddy house before improvement, had rented it to Mussa Hamisi Kazuba.
The dispute started after Kazuba accused the landlady of prematurely terminating the agreement and sought remedies at the defunct Regional Land and Housing Tribunal.
At the end, the tribunal pronounced judgment in favour of Kazuba and ordered Tatu to pay him Sh1.8 million as money she had received from him as rent and payment of Sh900,000 per month from May 1999 to the date of full payment as loss of income.
Tatu’s appeals at the Housing Appeals Tribunal in 2000 and later in the High court were also unsuccessful.
The dispute took a new twist in 2001 after Kazuba initiated execution proceedings at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court which finally ordered the sale of the property. S.H Amon purchased the house in an auction on March13, 2001.
On becoming aware of the execution proceedings, Pazi’s family unsuccessfully instituted various proceedings to challenge the execution and sale of the suit property.
Still aggrieved, they filed a land case No. 185 of 2004 claiming for declaration that the suit property belonged to them and that the attachment, sale and their subsequent eviction from and demolition of the house were illegal and fraudulent.
They lost the case in High Court and advanced to the Court of Appeal to challenge the same.
The Court of Appeal said in its recent decision that Amon bought the house while aware that the property was until then jointly owned by Tatu and her relatives.
“The second respondent (Amon) having purchased the property without prior inquiry into the extent of the title of the judgment debtor (Tatu) on the suit property, cannot qualify as a bonafide.
“This is because in the circumstances of this case, any reasonable man would have expected the second respondent to (S.H. Amon Enterprises), before purchasing the suit property, inquire and find out in the relevant authorities what interests, if any, the said fourth respondent (Tatu)’s relatives had in the suit property.
“Her unreasonable omission to make an inquiry, put her to constructive notice or imputed notice of the appellant’s ownership interests on the suit property.
The court rejected Mr Amon’s complaint that he has invested huge amount of money on the property unworthy of being considered.
“Since it is clear from the record that she had been aware of the dispute on the property right from the beginning, whatever investment she injected on the suit property, was at her own risk,” said Judges Mwanaisha Kwariko, Issa Maige and Abraham Mwampashi.
They went on: “We cannot order demolition of the of the current buildings n the suit property as we see nothing wrong with the building itself. In any event, such order will not benefit either of the parties and it will have adverse effects to the national economy.
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