YOGUO AND ANOTHER vs. AGYEKUM AND OTHERS

By their writ of summons filed in the High Court, Kumasi, the respondents (hereinafter referred to as the plaintiffs), claimed a declaration of title to a house situate at Yonso near Jamasi in Ashanti. Although the title of the suit leaves the impression that the appellants (hereinafter referred to as the defendants) were sued in their individual capacity, yet the pleadings and the whole of the proceedings make it quite clear that they were sued and they defended the suit in their capacity as representatives of a family to which the father of the plaintiffs, one Kwaku Agyekum, and his elder brother Kwadjo Agyekum, both deceased, belonged. There is no dispute as to the identity of the property, the subject-matter of the suit; identical descriptions of it are given by the plaintiffs in their writ of summons and by the defendants in their statement of defence and counterclaim. The plaintiffs pleaded that the house was built by their father as his self-acquired property and that their...