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The Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the Trustees of the late Edward Osei Boakye of Boakye Mattress fame in connection with a legal tussle over a commercial building owned by the late business magnate.
In a unanimous decision last Thursday, [May 20, 2021] a three-member panel of the court dismissed a review application by one Yaw Boakye who was seeking to invalidate the terms of settlement reached between him and the Trustees with regard to the building.

Review application

Yaw Boakye wanted the apex court to set aside an order by a single judge of the court, who adopted the terms of settlement between him (Yaw Boakye) and the Edward Osei Boakye Trust Fund in 2014.

According to him, the judge had no jurisdiction to adopt the terms of settlement of the parties.

In dismissing the review application, the court held that the single judge who adopted the terms of settlement between the two parties as consent judgment, had jurisdiction to do so.


It further held that the single judge did not breach any rule or procedure of court.

Also, the highest court of the land held that it would be disingenuous for the applicant (Yaw Boakye) to rush to court seeking to overturn the terms of settlement when he had already benefitted from it for more than six years.

The review panel was presided over by Justice Yaw Appau, with Justices Professor Nii Ashie Kotey and Issifu Omoro Tanko Amadu as members.

Background

The property under dispute is located at Airport just before the Shell filling station at 37.

Following the death of Mr. Edward Osei Boakye in 2006, a dispute arose between Executors of the Estate and the Trustees who operate under the name Edward Osei Boakye Trust Fund represented by three Trustees, and Yaw Boakye over the ownership of the property.

The dispute travelled from the High Court to the Court of Appeal where Yaw Boakye lost in a judgment delivered in 2011 and was ordered to vacate the property.

He filed an appeal at the Supreme Court during which the parties agreed to settle the matter amicably leading to a consent judgement in 2014.

As part of the terms of settlement under the consent judgement, the Trustees of Mr. Edward Osei Boakye decided to sublease the property to Yaw Boakye for a period of 15 years for a monthly rent payment of $35,000 payable annually in advance.

Trustees fight back

The Trustees filed a case at the High Court that after payment of one year rent, Yaw Boakye defaulted in the payment of rent as agreed in the consent judgement, with outstanding rent amounting to $1,260,000 covering the period May 2016 to April 2019.

In view of non-payment of rent since 2016, the Trustees went to court seeking to recover the commercial property from Yaw Boakye and his tenants, recover unpaid rent and also damages for breach of contract.

As part of their case, they prayed the court to order the tenants on the property not to pay rent to Yaw Boakye but to the court until the final determination of their suit and also for the court to inspect the property to ascertain the number of tenants and also whether or not they had been paying the rent.

High Court order

On July 22, 2019, the High Court, presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffour, upheld the application of the Trustees.

He, therefore, ordered the Registrar of the Court to inspect the property to ascertain the number of tenants there and also to inspect the tenancy agreement and the rent receipt books.

“It is further ordered that future rent due first respondent (Yaw Boakye) should not be paid to him but be paid into court and the rent placed into an interest bearing account till the final determination of the suit or some such time as the court May direct,” Justice Kyei Baffour ordered.

Dissatisfied with the decision, lawyers for Yaw Boakye filed an application for stay of execution pending appeal against the decision of the High Court. It was dismissed by the High Court.

He then appealed to the Court of Appeal, but on December 10, 2019, the Court of Appeal dismissed it and held that granting the application would prejudice Yaw Boakye’s appeal against the decision of the High Court.

Yaw Boakye then appealed to the Supreme Court and filed an application for the suspension of the order made by the High Court.

However, on April 20, 2020, a five-member panel of the apex court dismissed his application as incompetent and slapped cost of GH¢5,000 against him.

Yaw Boakye followed with numerous applications which were all dismissed, the latest being the review application challenging the consent judgement.