Johannesburg - The friends and family of an 83-year-old woman in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, are fighting to reinstate her name on the house they say rightfully belongs to her.
Over the past 20 years, Paulina Moya has taken the matter to court. She’s stayed in the house despite eviction notices. And she’s watched the home she’s lived in since 1987 get sold to strangers, twice.
Now, she has been told she would need more than R300 000 to pay off the current owner’s bank debts before the house can be transferred into her name.
“Gogo is the rightful owner,” Moya’s neighbour Garnetius Lesejane said of the old woman.
Moya, who was married in community of property to her late husband, bought the house in Khatamping, Tembisa, in 1987.
Unbeknown to her, her husband donated the house to their son, Sello Moya, and his wife, in 1989.
After Moya’s husband died in 1992 and Sello died in 1996, the house came under the ownership of her daughter-in-law.
Moya and her family do not recall being consulted on the donation.
According to the Law Society of South Africa, marriages in community of property require written consent of both spouses in important property transactions. Moya said she never gave it.
She found out about the transfer only when the daughter-in-law sold the house.
The new owner tried to evict Moya in 2002, her attorney Steve Nkosi said.
But Moya brought the matter to the High Court in Joburg, which nullified the transfer and sale, giving Moya the right of leasehold.
Another high court decision in 2008 prohibited the owner from further selling of the house. But it did not stop him.
The house was sold that year to Thomas Mabena, who said he was told by the previous owner that the old woman would move out. “There were lies there.”
Mabena said he was told nothing about the history of the house until he tried to move in with his children.
He said he wants nothing more to do with the house, but the deed cannot be transferred to Moya because of the debt he accrued when making the purchase.
“I can’t pay for a house that I’m not in,” he said. “I couldn’t even move into that house.”
Last week, Moya sat in her livingroom with her grandson and neighbour, looking at the 1987 document that certified Moya and her husband’s right of leasehold.
Tenants milled about the house. On a table lay water and electricity bills, addressed to the home in Mabena’s name. She still does not know how the house was given to her son and daughter-in-law more than 20 years ago without her consent.
“It is still a question mark today,” Moya’s other son, Jotham, said. “We don’t know how they overcame this.”
Nkosi said the matter must be brought to court yet again for Moya’s name to be reinstated.
The Star