RICHMOND BOAMAH BERIMAH vs. ALBERT NANOR, JANET OPOKU AND PASTOR DAN CATO

The dispute concerned ownership of a house at Kwabenya acquired during the marriage of the plaintiff and the 2nd defendant, Janet Opoku. The plaintiff-husband claimed that although the property was initially assigned into his wife’s name by Dr. K. K. Sarpong, he was the true owner and later purchased the property from her through a sale agreement financed by a Cocoa Board staff housing loan. The wife denied any such sale and maintained that while living and working in Germany she sent remittances to Ghana to fund the acquisition and development of the property, which was registered in her name. The evidence revealed that the plaintiff had created multiple versions of sale documents and admitted preparing the supposed transfer documents himself. The Supreme Court found that the plaintiff’s case rested substantially on forged or fraudulent documents and that the Court of Appeal had wrongly granted him equitable relief. Portion of judgment: opening background and the sections discussing Exhibits “A” and “D”, the plaintiff’s admissions, and the analysis under 'ADVANCEMENT AND RESULTING TRUST' and forgery under Act 29.

PROF. MENSA-BONSU, JSC:- The events that have given birth to this case evoke the wise observation of the Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive.” This case involves a dispute about the ownership of landed property between a husband and wife and the social fallouts from the economic difficulties that have afflicted the nation over the past forty odd years, leading couples to adopt all manner of strategies, including ‘distance marriages’ to secure their economic well-being and the survival of their families. The cultural assumptions underlying notions of marriage in Ghana, in which a woman is dependent upon her husband, and the husband is the one who has the means to acquire landed property which may be held solely in his name, have come under some strain. In consequence of such assumptions, ownership of, and title to landed property held in the wife’s name is seen as a deviation from the normal, and often inte...