'We just want justice to prevail'

I am the last born in a family of four, but we lost a sister after our mother and father's passing on, leaving me with an elder brother and another sister.

My brother and I live at the house which is at the centre of the dispute, but my surviving sister is married and lives in another suburb here in Harare.

We were all witnesses as our parents, especially our mother, toiled to form and burn bricks to have it built and because of such an experience, it remains of sentimental value to us.

Even our parents, before they died, would constantly say they had built the house as our inheritance and the inheritance of our sons and daughters and should, therefore, be preserved for the clan.

When we were invited by the Master's Office for an edict meeting, we complied and extended the invitation to our other relatives, some of whom could not be allowed in because they did not have national identity cards.

The advisor whom we consult in all matters related to us in the family, our aunt (father's sister), was ill and also could not attend.

The meeting, which was supposed to start at 10:30am, only took off half-an-hour before lunch hour and we were hastily informed by an assistant master (who often times would leave the desk to seek counsel from a more senior member of the Master's Office) that we had been called to choose an executor from among ourselves.

Because of the limited time, lack of preparation and the fact that we also needed to consult with elders in our family before making a decision, we could not immediately come up with a name, thereby asking for more time to do so.

Our sister, having learnt for the first time that she, too, would have equal shares in the estate, was, however, of the opinion that we immediately settle the matter so that she could get her share in monetary value and develop the unfinished home where she is married, to which suggestion my brother and I objected.

We even suggested that she be the executor, an offer she turned down owing to her lack of writing abilities. That is when we asked that we retreat and come up with a neutral executor from within our family structures.

While waiting for the Master's Office to inform us of the new date, for which we even offered to pay another edict fee, we were surprised to hear from one Decide Kutyauripo, informing us that he had been chosen as our executor because we had failed as a family to appoint one among ourselves.

He made this communication by text message, which made us suspect something was not right because we presumed that any business communication has to be formal.

Regardless of our refusal to co-operate with him, insisting that we awaited instructions from the Master's Office.

He brought people he called evaluators to our house who left us an invoice and Kutyauripo engaged our sister  . . .  and coerced her to pen a letter to the effect that she wanted the house sold.

While the handwriting was our sister's, what surprised us was how articulate our sister had suddenly become in matters of pen and paper when she does not even have a single academic certificate.

This, obviously, was a divide-and-rule tactic.

We objected to Kutyauripo imposing himself on us and even wrote to the Master, visited his office and demanded to see the Master personally, but staff at the office said we could not because he was busy.

They referred us to an assistant who, coincidentally, was also the one who had signed the letter appointing Kutyauripo our executor.

We protested and he assured us that he would look into the matter and promised to communicate with us, but letters of demand from Kutyauripo were meanwhile pouring in.

When we were eventually called for what the assistant master termed "a special meeting" at which time as family we had agreed that our nephew (muzukuru) would be our executor, the proposal was turned down on the grounds that Kutyauripo had reached an advanced stage with his duties and so should continue and we pay him his fee (a percent of the value of the estate).

All nine of us who had come for the meeting protested and a police guard with a gun was called in and threatened to throw us out if we did not co-operate.

For the past five months we have experienced "hell" as threat upon threat and ultimatum upon ultimatum have been thrown at my brother and I, compelling us to even suspend paying school fees for our children so we could raise the Master's fees in full before the given deadline.

On the other hand my sister and ourselves – who grew up as a united family – are no longer on speaking terms because we believe due to her lack of knowledge she was isolated and used as a pawn to satisfy the avarice of the so-called executor.

There have been three amounts put forth as being the value of the house and we believe the intention was to prejudice us and convert the inflated amount to Kutyauripo's own use, something which is criminal and could best be qualified as fraud.

Even the Master was surprised by this development and has promised that we are going to be reimbursed the extra we paid under duress.

I have been hospitalised for stress and the family has literally broken down.

We, however, pray that justice will eventually prevail and we can pick up the pieces and begin to live the normal lives we were used to before this torturous experience.

The above was paraphrased from a conversation our Correspondent had with one of the sisters locked in the battle with the neutral executor. The family choose not to be named.