ROSINA NGIRAZI

versus

FUNGAI SAUROSI

and

KWEKWE CITY COUNCIL

HIGH COURT OF ZIMBABWE

MATHONSI J

BULAWAYO 15 MARCH 2018 AND 22 MARCH 2018

Opposed application

S Siziba for the applicant

K Ngwenya for the respondent

            MATHONSI J:          This is essentially an application for condonation of the late noting of an appeal against the judgment of the magistrates court sitting at Kwekwe handed down on 9 January 2013 in terms of which it ordered the applicant, as the executrix of the estate of her husband, the late David Nyirenda, to transfer House number 544/3 Mbizo Kwekwe to the first respondent.  The court made a finding that the said house had been sold by the deceased to the first respondent before he passed away on 27 June 2008.

            The applicant, who had earlier on in 2009 been issued with a certificate of authority by the additional master to transfer the same house, surprisingly valued at $1000-00, to her own name, was understandably gutted.  She purported to file an appeal but in the wrong court namely the magistrates court in Kwekwe on 21 February 2013.  She says that when she tried to file the appeal in this court she was stopped dead in her tracks, the time within which to appeal having expired.

            The applicant says as a lay person she was vexed by that sudden turn of events and sought assistance from “the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association who kept (her) documents for months” without acting on them.  They later returned the documents to her without an explanation.  At that stage she decided to report the matter to the police alleging forgery of her deceased husband’s signature on the agreement of sale purportedly entered into between the deceased and the first respondent.  She does not say what became of the police case.  She