Soweto man loses court battle for family home upon returning from prison.
A man who returned to his late brother's Soweto home after serving 16 years in prison has lost his High Court bid to strip his brother's children of ownership of the property after a judge found they were its lawful heirs.
The South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg dismissed an application brought by CL, who sought to cancel the title deed for the Pimville property and transfer ownership to the heirs of his late parents instead of the children of his deceased brother, YL. The court also ordered CL and his two sisters, who joined him as applicants, to pay the legal costs of the application.
In the application, CL argued that the property had originally been allocated to his late parents under the apartheid-era Regulation 7 permit system and that the subsequent registration of the title deed in the names of his late brother, YL, and his wife, FL, had been unlawful.
He also asked the court to declare FL's will invalid, arguing that because his parents had died without leaving wills, the property should have devolved to all their heirs under the law of intestate succession.
