Chiyangwa loses property to residents' association

FLAMBOYANT businessman Phillip Chiyangwa has had part of his upmarket Chisora Village in Harare's The Grange suburb attached after his company Padley Enterprises Pvt Ltd failed to pay damages worth US$609 115 to the Grange Residents' Association for failing to service stands.

Padley Enterprises is Chiyangwa's property development company that purchased a 60-hectare plot of land in The Grange. The plot was subdivided into 2 000-square-metre stands and sold to individuals.

According to High Court documents, Chiyangwa lost the property to the Grange Residents' Association, a group of residents who purchased residential stands from the company during the period extending from 2007.

In terms of various agreements of sale concluded by Padley Investments and its clients, it was supposed to service the property development by way of providing roads, storm water reticulation and waterworks, among other things. Court papers state that Padley Investments breached the terms of the agreements and, despite notice of the breach, the company failed to rectify the anomaly.

On September 27 last year, High Court judge Justice Owen Tagu ruled that the defendant, Padley Enterprises Pvt Ltd, pay the Grange Residents' Association US$609 115 on or before December 31 2017.

In the event of default, Tagu said: ". . . the defendant's property wherever situate be and is hereby declared executable and the sheriff is authorised to dispose of the same to satisfy the damages."

Padley Enterprises failed to pay the sum, resulting in the remaining unsold stands in Chisora Village being attached as shown by the High Court Sheriff's notice of attachment of immovable property dated February 8 2018.

The Grange Residents Association was represented by Tafadzwa Mugabe.

Mugabe said the stands would be sold by public auction.

"It is true Chiyangwa's Chisora village has been attached and because they will be sold by public auction I cannot really say how much they are worth," said Mugabe.

According to the court documents, Padley Enterprises at first denied the liability of paying damages until November 2015 when at a pre-trial conference before then High Court judge Priscilla Chigumba the parties entered a deed of settlement and signed off on an order by consent.

Court documents show that Padley Enterprises was arguing that some of the residential stands were purchased during the Zimbabwean dollar era and the engaged contractor, Bitumen Construction Services, failed to complete the initial works due to the escalating costs arising from hyper-inflation obtaining at the time.

Some of the terms of the deed of settlement which was signed in 2015 were: "That the defendant is unconditionally liable for specific performance to the plaintiff and its membership by the way of development, servicing and attendant works at Sub Division C of the Grange in terms of the agreements of sale made and entered into by the parties or alternatively to pay, in damages in lieu of defendant's performance, the objective value of performance in money equivalent to costs of specific performance aforementioned by a mutually agreed third party."

Other terms were: "That the defendant was supposed to unconditionally elect to pay damages in lieu of specific performance. That the issues of the quantum of damages in lieu of specific performance and the liability for costs of this action are referred to trial."

At the trial one of the plaintiff witnesses, Stanley Nyevere, narrated what the defendant was supposed to do and produced five quotations from different contractors. The defendant did not object to the production of the documents.

The quotations were as follows: Storm Property Developments US$571 110, Clockmate Investments Civil and Building contractors US$722 454, Tencraft Construction Civil Engineering US$506 748, US$830 284 and Tensor Systems US$781 449.