THE Matero local court has dismissed a case in which a woman of Lusaka’s Balastone area sued her brother-in-law for reconciliation over her late husband’s property.
Lillian Zulu, 40, told the court that when her husband died in 2006, his brother was chosen as an administrator but since then he had failed to administer his brother’s estate properly.
This is a case in which Lillian sued Goodson Zulu, 50, for reconciliation over her late husband’s estate.
Lillian said at the time of his death, her husband had four children – one from her and three from another woman.
She said the administrator got custody of the three children and promised to educate them using her husband’s benefits.
The court heard that after nine years the children went back to her and she started keeping them because she regarded them as her children.
She said after her husband’s benefits came out she advised the administrator to get part of the money and build a house for the three children as a way of investing for them.
Lillian said before her husband died, the two built a house and she never wanted the children to lay claim to the house when they grew up.
She said now that the administrator had finished the money for the other children without investing it for them, they were now claiming the house.
“I want these children to stay away from the house because it belongs to my son only,” Lillian said.
In his defence, Zulu said as an administrator he had carried out his job diligently and it was unfair for Lillian to accuse him of failing to administer his brother’s property.
He said the only problem was because Lillian was refusing to allow the other children to benefit from the house.
Zulu said from the time his brother died, she was given life interest in the house but she went ahead and got married to another man.
He said since she was married to another man, it was only right that she surrendered the house to the children.
“This woman should just concentrate on her new marriage and surrender the house to the children,” Zulu said.
Magistrate Patronella Kalyelye, sitting with Lewis Mumba, dismissed the case on the basis that it had been presided over before.
Times of Zambia