Law Of Death Denies Heirs Fortune

Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Monday January 25, 2021 17:43

Not only are they barred by law from selling the land, but they also cannot inherit it. For the Ramakgathi siblings, Boiki, Thapelo, Khumanego, and Tumelo, they know the land as belonging to them; they grew up farming and harvesting such traditional delights as mealies, magapu, dinawa, sweet reeds and mabele. For them, the thought of their mother’s death culminating in the dispossession of the ploughing field for the family did not cross their minds. Traditionally, and as it is commonplace, such property becomes the inheritance of the departed parent’s children, without any disputes in the event of death.

However, the siblings are learning the hard way in court that what they had been believing was a straight forward inheritance matter is not as cut and dried.

This is after they had completed the sale of the ploughing field to one Kago Ntebela some time in 2019, with the help of a letter from the village headman. However, after the buyer of the ploughing field decided to take the Kgatleng Land Board to court for refusing him the rights over that piece of land, which he had already subdivided into 114 portions and sold to interested buyers, the Kgatleng Land Board has turned to the law and not Setswana tradition to strengthen their case. Represented by Dutch Leburu, the Land Board is brandishing the law of death, which gives the powers to transact with a deceased person’s property or estate to a court-appointed executor or master of High Court. Using the laws governing the administration of the estate of the deceased persons, the Land Board says only the executor can sue or be sued on behalf of the estate of the deceased persons and that neither Ntebela, the buyer of the piece of land nor the progeny of the late Mpolokeng Josephine Ramakgathi has any power in the law to stand in court claiming to represent the property. Therefore, the land board argues, the siblings have no authority to sell the plot as such authority to transfer property of the deceased lies with an executor appointed by the High Court. It is the same predicament faced by the buyer of the land, who according to the law of the deceased persons’ property, likewise, has no rights to claim to speak for or represent the property of the deceased. “Upon the death of Josephine Ramakgathi all her property including the ploughing field under dispute vested in the hands of the master of the High Court or her Estate and no one could deal with it including heirs, except in terms of the law. The transferors have not been appointed the executors/executrix in the estate of the late Mpolokeng Josephine Ramakgathi, therefore the rights conferred by the heirs in the Estate of the late Mpolokeng Josephine Ramakgathi, all such steps/actions taken are of no force and effect”, reads attorney Leburu’s arguments in part. What further complicates matters for the siblings and the buyer is the fact that the departed owner of the ploughing field did not leave behind any guidance in bequeathing to anyone in the event of her death. Sadly for the siblings and the buyer, as things stand, there is no court-appointed executor of the late Mpolokeng Josephine Ramakgathi’s estate, with whom to lay claim over the disputed fortune. The Land Board also says no official records are indicating that the departed legally owned the disputed piece of land, while the siblings claim that she had owned the ploughing field years before the Land Board was established, but had not yet registered it with the Land Board for a certificate.