By SARAH TEMBO-
A-24-year old man of Lusaka’s Marapodi Township has been sued by his sister after he allegedly threatened to sell a family house left by their late mother.
Susan Nakamba 41 told the Matero Local Court that when their parents died her brother grabbed the title deed for the house and had since then been threatening to sell it.
This was in a case where Susan Nakamba sued Robert Chunga 24 after he got the documents of the house without the permission of the other family members.
Nakamba told the court that her brother built a two-roomed house on the family plot and decided to keep the deed to the house.
She submitted that whenever a member quarreled with Chunga he threatened to put the house on sale.
Nakamba added that his brother was also fond of insulting her, ordering her to vacate the family house as he was the one paying the land rates and holding the title deeds.
She said no one had elected the defendant as an administrator and wondered why he spending the rentals on beer alone.
“I want the court to order him to release the title deed for the house so that he would have no power to claim that the family house is his,” she said.
But in his defence, Chunga claimed that he was chosen as an administrator by other members of the family when their parents died.
He said he was given the documents of the house by his mother because she trusted him so much and knew that he was capable of taking care of the house.
Chunga added that she used to argue with his sister because she never wanted to be helping him with paying the land rates though she was also staying at the same house.
“I will never hand over the papers of the house to any member of the family, I have built a house on that land and I pay the land rates every month,” he said.
But Local court Magistrate Lewis Mumba sitting with Petronalla Kalyelye ordered the family to choose an administrator who would be able to administer their estate properly.