AFRIYIE V. DOTWAAH AND ANOTHER

APALOO J.: In this action, the plaintiff claims against the defendants a declaration of the title of her family to a cocoa farm said to be situated at a place called Patwire on Amoako stool land, and other incidental reliefs which for present purposes it is unnecessary to set out.

It is common ground that the farm in dispute was the self-acquired property of a man by name Kwaku Addo. The latter died intestate in or about 1947, and by the well-known canons of customary law, the farm became family property. The evidence shows that the defendant has for many years been in possession or had some form of control over the farm. The capacity in which he did this is the subject-matter of fierce controversy. I find it established that on the 10th August, 1960, the first defendant conveyed this farm to the second defendant by way of legal mortgage to secure the repayment of the sum of £G325 advanced to the former by the latter. The plaintiff seems to have got wind of the negotiations for the loa…