Hiilside businessman in fight over 105-year shop lease

A HILLSIDE businessman - Marshal Joseph Stuart - who was awarded a 105-year lease for a shop is embroiled in a fierce battle with his landlord who is frantically trying to evict him regardless of the agreement.

Stuart has been entangled in a battle with shop owner Elexandros Maroukis for the past 19 years.

The shop, which is part of the double storey Old Mutual building owned by Maroukis, is situated at the Hillside Shopping Centre in Bulawayo.

So nasty has been the dispute that on several occasions the matter has been in and out of the courts ostensibly because Maroukis has been withdrawing the case before full trial.

Last week, Maroukis revived the court battle to take over the shop, which Stuart has turned into a clothing outlet over the years.

Recently, Stuart - a man of mixed race - expressed pain at how his landlord has been behaving in the past decade, accusing him of trying to evict him to make way for a white tenant.

"I occupied the shop in 2006, when everybody including the white community was abandoning this business complex due to economic challenges," Stuart told Southern News.

"But I remained steadfast and pulled through and that's when Maroukis offered me a 105-year lease for this shop. It's something that is on record, we both signed and made an agreement and the original copy is with the lawyers," he said.

But Maroukis has starkly turned against Stuart, accusing him of forging the bizarrely long lease. This has become his basis in the latest court application.

According to a July, 17, 2012 letter by Stuart's lawyers - Majoko and Majoko Legal Practitioners - to Maroukis, the lease runs up to 2112.

"By lease agreement entered into on the March 21, 2007, you leased out and our client took on lease the premises above mentioned. The lease was to terminate on the April 1, 2112."

"Surprisingly, through your agents Ken Estate Agents, you denied there was a lease and suggested that if our client produced one it was a forgery. The allegation was malicious, scandalous and defamatory of our client…," reads the letter in part.

The lawyers also declared that Stuart was not vacating the shop.

"Our client will not vacate the shop for as long as he requires its use and observes the terms of the lease."

In his response, Maroukis questioned the authenticity of the lease.

"You shall undoubtedly note that on the mentioned lease all numerical 2's are almost identical yet the latter being the 105-year extension seems to be completely different to all others," Maroukis argued.

"Does this not pose a question with respect to its authenticity? I put it to you that it appears to be an addition to the contract and did not form part of the so-called agreement," he queried.

However, as part of forcing Stuart out of the premises, Maroukis has allegedly been using a "scotched earth policy".

"The shop is now in bad shape but the owner has warned me against renovating it. He blocked the water supply, there is no electricity and I don't even have electricity. The roof is leaking when it's raining.

"He even tried to double the rentals but I refused since there was no justification. All these have been clear tactics to move me out of this place but I told him that I can't move away, I have a long running lease," Stuart said.

"The reason why he keeps renewing court cases that he never pursues is that they want to suffocate me financially.