A bitter inheritance dispute has erupted in Mutasa, with a woman accused of demolishing part of her late parents’ home to prevent her half-brother from benefiting from it. The drama unfolded in Chief Mutasa’s community court, where Lameck Mutseyekwa accused his half-sister, Catherine Mutseyekwa, of deliberately destroying a section of the house.
Catherine claimed the demolition was necessary due to structural damage, but Lameck alleged it was an attempt to disinherit him. “My father allocated the property to me before his death, but Catherine demolished part of it, saying it was her section and that I shouldn’t benefit from it,” Lameck said. He added that Catherine had warned him beforehand, but he was powerless to stop her since he was in South Africa at the time.
The dispute has deepened rifts within the family, with each side accusing the other of greed and bad faith. According to Hondo Mutseyekwa, Catherine’s brother, the house belonged to their mother and father, and Lameck had no claim to it. “We gave him his mother’s land, and he can build there. That house belongs to us as children of the first wife, and to our widowed sister, Catherine,” Hondo said.
In a bizarre twist, it emerged that Lameck’s nephew, Terrence, had planted bananas on the disputed land, unaware of the family feud. When questioned about his actions, Terrence claimed he had no knowledge of the dispute and was simply trying to make use of the land.
Chief Mutasa warned Catherine and Hondo against family bullying and urged them to respect traditional inheritance arrangements. “In our culture, when a man dies, all his children remain his children regardless of which wife gave birth to them. No one has the right to push out or dispossess another,” he said. The Chief ordered the family to declare their late father’s estate through the Master of the High Court, after it emerged that their late father had a house in Harare that Lameck was not benefiting from .
end//..
