The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled in favour of Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd, affirming its ownership of approximately 2,911.53-acre Katamanso lands in the Greater Accra Region. The five-member panel, chaired by Chief Justice Gertrude Araba Torkornoo, delivered its judgment on October 23, 2024, concluding an eight-year legal battle.
The apex court gave the ruling 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 court dismissed claims by a plaintiff, Tassah Tapha Tassah, who argued he had legitimately acquired the land in 2004. The land, covered by Land Title Certificate No. TD 0513, has been in the possession of Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate since 1974. The Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s earlier decision, overturning the Court of Appeal’s ruling in favour of the plaintiff.
Key Findings by the Supreme Court
•Legal Ownership: The court affirmed Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Limited’s title, tracing its legal ownership back to 1970 through a grant from the Nungua Stool.
•Bona Fide Purchaser Doctrine: The court highlighted that a purchaser must exercise due diligence in verifying land titles. Failure to investigate could result in loss of protection under the “bona fide purchaser for value without notice” doctrine.
•Invalid Claims: The court found no evidence that the plaintiff’s lessor had the authority to lease the disputed land, rendering the plaintiff’s claim invalid.
Background
The plaintiff alleged he had acquired the land from the Kplen We Family of La in Accra, in 2004. However, Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Limited provided evidence that it had held the land since 1974 and had been granted further leases in subsequent years. The company’s documentation, including the Land Title Certificate, was upheld as valid by the Supreme Court.
The ruling solidifies Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Limited’s position as one of Ghana’s leading private real estate developers, known for providing secure and affordable housing. Located about 30 minutes from Kotoka International Airport, the estate is a gated community offering first-class amenities. This landmark ruling reaffirms the principles of due diligence in land acquisition and establishes Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Limited as the rightful owner of the Katamanso lands, providing clarity and security for its clients and stakeholders.
The Managing Director of Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Limited, Dr. Prince-Joseph M.K. Ayiku, expressed gratitude for the court’s ruling in his New Year message. He assured current and prospective homeowners of the legitimacy of all grants made by the company.
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.
Facts
In December 2017, 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.
It was the case of Tassah that he acquired the parcel of land in 2004 by lease from the Kpen We Family of La for a term of 99 years, but the land was registered in the name of one Land and Housing Limited therefore, he went ahead to regularise the acquisition by attorning tenancy to the said company.
He further averred that in 2013, he became aware that Lakeside Estate held the legal title to the said land, but moves to attorn tenancy to Lakeside proved futile as it had already sold the land to Ibrahim Hudu and Suwayba Adam.
However, Tassah was of the contention that despite the new development, he was a bona fide purchaser for value without notice of Lakeside Estate’s adverse interest hence, title to the land should be declared in his favour.
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 cannot 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 had acquired vested interests under the equity principle of bona fide purchaser for value without notice, and should therefore be protected.
Appeal
Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate limited and the other parties were also dissatisfied by 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 because 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. Given that, the Supreme Court held that Tassah had no basis to assume that Lakeside Estate had no title to the land during his search.
Exhibit D (the search) revealed the 5th appellant’s prior registered interest in the disputed land. This constituted sufficient notice to the respondent. The respondent cannot remain in deliberate ignorance of the presence and possession of the 5th appellant (Lakeside Estate) on the land in question since 1970 as shown by his search reports, the court added.
Read the full judgment
The Case of the Plaintiff
On 10 May 2017, Plaintiff sued Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd (the Company) and 4 others for declaring title to portions of lands belonging to and in actual possession of the company as described above. The Plaintiff’s case is that he acquired the parcel of land in 2004 by lease from a supposed lessor by the name of Kplen We Family of La, Accra, for a term of 99 years and that the Deed of Lease was prepared for him by the said lessor in 2007. According to the Plaintiff before acquiring the parcel of land in dispute, his inquiries revealed that owners of the adjoining lands had all obtained their grants from the Kplen We Family and that he went into physical possession of the land in 2004 by putting up temporary structures on the land and planting crops thereon among others and subsequently in 2008 conducted searches at the Lands Commission, the statutory body vested with the mandate to keep data and or records of lands in Ghana, wherein it became apparent that the land so acquired by the Plaintiff was registered in the name of ‘Land and Housing Limited’ following which he (the Plaintiff) proceeded to regularise his acquisition of the land by attorning tenancy to the said Land and Housing Ltd. The Plaintiff further mentioned that in or about 2013, it came to his notice, once again that the Company being the rightful and legal owner of the land described herein holds title to and has been in undisturbed possession of the land since the year 1974. Having the land for such a long time (1974), the Company had sold that portion of the land to some other persons (the 3″ and 4″ Defendants) and there was no way, the Company would have sold the same parcel of land to the Plaintiff. The plaintiff felt aggrieved by the decision of the company not to regularize his documents and therefore instituted an action against the Company wherein he (the Plaintiff) in the suit pleaded that he was a bona fide purchaser for the value of the land in dispute.
The Case of Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd (the Company).
The company confirmed the 3“and 4″ Defendants as their grantees and contended that the Company became the legal owner and in actual possession of the disputed lands in 1974 when a company called Black Watch Cattle Breeding Farms assigned its interest in the land to Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd (the Company), known formerly as Agri-Cattle Limited. Accordingly, in 1995, the Company further leased from the Nungua Stool for a further term of fifty (50) years of the same piece of land and this was done with the consent and concurrence of their grantor, Agri-Cattle Limited changed the original use of the land for agricultural purposes to the construction of houses for let and sale and changed their name to Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd. The Company further stated that in 1996, Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd acquired a Land Title Certificate No. TD 0513 over the land which had now reduced to 2,911.53 acres partly due to the compulsory acquisition of part of the land by the Government, under Executive Instrument (EI) 15. That it was part of Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd’s larger tract of land that Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd granted to the 3 and 4” Defendants, the same land that i
The Decision of the High Court
On the 13″ of November 2020, the High Court presided over by Her Ladyship Justice Merley Wood. JA in her final judgment dismissed the Plaintiff’s case and gave judgment to the Company on its counterclaim, declaring the Company as the legal owner of Lakeside Estate lands. The Court further declared that the evidence on record confirmed that the larger tract of land including the portion in dispute belonged to the Company. The Plaintiff, dissatisfied with the decision of the High Court, appealed to the Court of Appeal.
The Decision of the Court of Appeal
The Court of Appeal in its judgment presided by Justice Welbourne together with Justice Eric Kyei Baffour and Justice Prof. Anku-Tsede upheld the submission of the Plaintiff and set aside the judgment of the High Court. The Court in its judgment of 30″ March 2023 erroneously held that on the facts and evidence on the record, the Plaintiff took steps to investigate the title of his grantors before acquiring same and that at the time the Company obtained judgment in 2009, declaring the Company as the owner of the land in dispute the Plaintiff had acquired a vested right in the land in dispute and therefore the said judgment could not operate to extinguish the Plaintiff vested right in the disputed piece of land. The Court of Appeal subsequently reversed the judgment of the trial High Court and granted the reliefs of the Plaintiff sought at the High Court. The Company completely distraught and aggrieved by the judgment of the Court of Appeal caused its lawyers to as a matter of principle and the law launched an appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Decision of the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court in its unanimous judgment of 23″ October 2024 declared the Company as the legal owner of the lands measuring 2911.53 acres and covered by Land title certificate number TD 0513 and this has put beyond doubt that the Company is the lawful owner of the lands described herein. The Supreme Court also stated that Plaintiff cannot remain in deliberate ignorance of the presence and possession of Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd on the land in question since 1970 and that it was. therefore, wrong for the Court of Appeal to ignore the possession and title of Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate to the question and state that the Plaintiff was not and could not have been a bona fide purchaser for value without notice just because one of the persons from whom he allegedly acquired the land had its name on the search report tendered in evidence.
The Supreme Court in its seminal decision was apt when it asserted during the judgment that. a critical review of the various Search Reports revealed that the title to the land in question flowed from Nii Aviku IV in 1970 to Black Watch (Cattle Breeding Farm) which later became known as Agri-Cattle Ltd and that it was in the year 2002 that one Numo Nii Amisah Nikoi popped up to make a grant to Land and Housing Ltd. There is no evidence whatsoever of the transfer of the land by Agri-Cattle Ltd to the said Numo Nii Amisah Nikoe to enable him to make a grant to the said Land and Housing Ltd. Further. the title of Agri-Cattle Ltd continued to be recognized by the Lands Commission to Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd to date. There is no evidence of acquisition by either Numo Nii Amisah Nikoi or Land and Housing Ltd of the land in question to enable them to lease the same out to the Plaintiff.
According to the learned Justices of the Supreme Court, the registration of the 2009 Judgment was an addition to or an extension of earlier registration, and the evidence on record would not support the finding by the Court of Appeal that the Plaintiff could only have had notice of Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd’s adverse interest after the 2009 judgment was registered after the Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd grant from the third party and that based on these pieces of evidence according to supreme Court, the argument that the 2009 judgment cannot operate retroactively to extinguish the Plaintiff’s allegedly acquired interest in the disputed land would not arise
The Supreme Court further held that the evidence on record confirms that the Company had a good title to the land in dispute and importantly that at the time Lands and Housing Ltd, the Plaintiff grantor plotted an interest in the land, the Company had validly registered and subsisting adverse interest in the disputed land and that at all times material Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd is the legal owner of all that land situate, lying and being at Katamanso in the Greater Region of Ghana containing an approximate area of 2911.53 acres and covered by Land Title Certificate No. TD 0513. Of particular importance of the decision of the Supreme Court worth highlighting for the attention of all and sundry is the fact that the judgment no doubt is the latest decision of the Apex Court that has elaborated the doctrine of bona fide purchaser for value without notice and has in the erudite judgment explained the doctrine in the following words: …“Any intending purchaser of property is put on his inquiry to make such investigations as to title as would enable him to rely on the plea of bona fide purchaser for value without notice. If he failed to make such inquiries, he acted at his peril if subsequent events disclosed that there was a valid challenge to the title he acquired, and the general principle of equity was that a purchaser was deemed to have notice of all that a reasonably prudent purchaser would have discovered. Thus, where the purchaser had actual notice that the property was in some way encumbered, she would be held to have had constructive notice of all that she would have discovered if she had investigated the incumbrance”.
Undoubtedly, Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd is currently one of the leading Private Real Estate Companies with the main focus on providing the best quality, secured, and affordable houses to all buyers within and beyond the borders of Ghana. The Company is a gated community that provides first-class social amenities aimed at making the lives of all and sundry in the estate relaxing and more comfortable. The Company is located within Katamanso about thirty minutes drive north of Kotoka International Airport Accra.
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’.
In conclusion, the Managing Director of Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd, Dr Prince-Joseph M. K. Ayiku in his New Year message whilst complimenting everyone, conveyed season greetings to all cherished and prospective homeowners and also used the opportunity to inform all and sundry of the judgment of the Supreme Court that unanimously declared Agri-Cattle Lakeside Estate Ltd as the legal owners of the parcel of lands measuring 2911.53 acres, situate, lying and being at Katamanso in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana and that all grants from the company are valid grants backed the law.
By Peter Quao Adattor
