A full bench of the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria has overturned a lower court ruling that restored a property to a woman who claimed she had been deceived into signing away ownership of her home during financial distress. The court upheld an appeal brought by Key Results Properties (Pty) Ltd and businessman Ernest Phillipus Blignaut against widow, Mmamabiri Leah Kgoele, who had sought to reverse the transfer of her property after it was registered in the company’s name in 2008.
Background to the Dispute
The dispute centred on a Pretoria property that Kgoele and her late husband faced losing after falling behind on mortgage repayments to ABSA. According to the judgment, Key Results, a property investment company, stepped in before the property could be sold in execution and concluded several agreements with the couple in August 2007.
Those agreements included a lease agreement, an offer to purchase, a special power of attorney and later a separate offer allowing the Kgoeles to buy the property back. The property was ultimately transferred into the name of Key Results on 11 March 2008.
Key Findings of the Appeal Court
Kgoele later approached the high court seeking to have the transfer set aside arguing that she believed the arrangement was merely a loan intended to save her home. She maintained that she had never intended to sell the property and that the payments she made over several years — amounting to more than R331,000 — were repayments of a loan rather than rental payments.
A lower court had accepted her version, finding that Key Results had fraudulently misrepresented the nature of the agreements and effectively tricked her into signing documents transferring ownership of the property. However, on appeal, Judge Sulet Potterill, with Judges Nicoline Janse van Nieuwenhuizen and Selemeng Nthabiseng Mokose concurring, found that the lower court had materially misdirected itself by resolving factual disputes on affidavit evidence alone.
The appeal court stressed that under the well-established Plascon-Evans rule, courts dealing with opposed motion proceedings cannot decide contested factual disputes merely by assessing credibility and probabilities unless the opposing version is clearly implausible or fictitious.
The judges found that significant factual disputes existed throughout the case, including whether Kgoele knowingly consented to the sale of the property, whether she understood the agreements she signed, and whether the payments made were rent or loan repayments.
The court also distinguished the matter from the Supreme Court of Appeal’s earlier ruling in Quartermark Investments v Mkhwanazi, a case involving a homeowner who successfully proved she had been defrauded into transferring her property.
- The court’s decision highlights the importance of carefully reviewing agreements before signing them.
- It also underscores the need for courts to carefully consider the evidence presented in cases involving disputed facts.
- The ruling may have implications for other cases involving property disputes and allegations of fraudulent misrepresentation.
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