VICTORIA KASANGA writes
@SunZambian
A PARENT who abandoned his family for 20 years, after he went to cohabit with another woman, has lost his house after a local court in Ndola ordered that it be sold and the money shared.
The Kabushi Local Court ordered that Nason Mwape’s house, situated on number 4672, Kabushi Extension, be sold and that his daughter, Christine Mwape, 48, of the same house number, be given 75 percent of the proceeds since she paid its purchase price.
The facts before court were that Mwape, 70, abandoned his family for another woman and only resurfaced 20 years later to claim ownership of the house.
According to Christine, her father left them ‘struggling’ in a Ndola City Council (NCC) house with their mother while they were still young and did not render any support whatsoever to them.
She told the local court presiding magistrate Mildred Namwizye, sitting with Evelyn Nalwizya, that she, her mother and siblings later shifted from the house after she got married but luckily, the council offered them to buy it off as sitting tenants.
“Since the house was in my father`s name, I decided to buy it and I paid K50, 000 for it and kept the title deeds,” Christine said.
She explained that the father returned this year and demanded the title deeds for the house saying he wanted to sell it off for K140, 000 but she refused to release the documents.
But in his defence, Mr Mwape said he wanted to sell the house because his daughter did not share with him the K950 monthly rentals from it.
He said that, despite that he had a right to benefit from the house, all the money earned from the rentals went to his wife.
In passing judgment, the court ordered that the house be sold; he gets 25 percent and his daughter, who paid for it, gets 75 per cent.
