7 siblings, all above 60, battle for their mother's Sh18m estate
Seven siblings, all above 60, are fighting for their mothers Sh18m estate.
What you need to know:
- Their mother, Lusila Wairu Waweru, died on October 15, 2015.
- The court battles kicked off with one sibling challenging of the validity of the dead woman’s will.
Seven siblings, the youngest 60 years old and the oldest 74, are embroiled in a bitter dispute over their mother's Sh18 million inheritance.
The bone of contention is land and commercial properties, including a popular club in Mtwapa. The dispute was triggered by the death of their mother Lusila Wairu Waweru on October 15, 2015 and kicked off with the challenging of the validity of the dead woman’s will, which specified how her wealth would be divided among her children.
The legal document, dated August 25, 2013, shows that Lusila named her daughter Agusta Rwamba and her son Joakim Ireri as the executors of her will.
One of her daughters, Margaret Thumbi Kona, was excluded from the inheritance and, with the help of Emmanuel Nyota and Wilbert Njuki, she went to court to dispute the validity of the will.
They filed the case through an originating summons in September 2016, seeking orders to invalidate the will. They argued that their mother was not in a proper state of mind to draft the document. They contended that, at the time the alleged will was created, their mother was of unsound mind. She was suffering from senile dementia and lacked full recollection. She was, therefore, incapable of making a valid will, the applicants contended.
“The will is invalid on the basis that the testator did not clearly understand her actions such that she could not recollect all her assets,” said the three, through SB Otieno and Company Advocates.
To prove that their mother was not mentally sound, the objectors revealed that specific assets were omitted from the will, while others were mistakenly included in the document.
Some of these assets, such as land parcels, had been subdivided and transferred when the will was supposedly created. They also challenged the will for excluding certain beneficiaries from inheritance, which they argued was not customary.
Before their mother died, Mr Nyota argued, she subdivided one of her plots and sold it to him, a fact confirmed by the High Court in Malindi. They also argued that a signature on the document differed from their mother's known signatures.
The objectors also claimed that their mother was illiterate, only spoke Kikuyu and broken Swahili, and could, therefore, not have understood the contents of the will that was drafted in English.
In response, Ms Rwamba and Mr Ireri clarified that the three were not named as executors of the will due to a strained relationship with their mother. Ms Rwamba said their mother had called all of them excluding Ms Thumbi for a meeting, during which it was decided that certificates of titles and other formal documents would be entrusted to Ms Rwamba for safekeeping.
Ms Rwamba and Mr Ireri said the will was prepared in the presence of an advocate who also testified in court, confirming the document's validity.
Justice Reuben Nyakundi affirmed the validity and proper execution of the will and declined to annul it. However, he ordered an equal distribution of the estate among the beneficiaries. This decision allowed Ms Rwamba and Mr Ireri to file for Testate Probate within 45 days from the October 25, 2020 judgment date.
But four years later, the estate is still undistributed, as Mr Nyota and his two siblings accuse their sister, Ms Rwamba, of engaging in activities that not only violate legal directives, but also seem to systematically disenfranchise other rightful beneficiaries of the estate. Mr Nyota accuses Ms Rwamba of disregarding court orders by proceeding with the reconstruction of the club. He also expresses frustration over the delays in distributing the estate, which he believes should have been completed within six months of his sister receiving the letters of administration.
Nyota alleges that his sister has been stalling the probate process since April 2019, thereby exclusively benefiting from the rental income of the club, a part of the estate, to the detriment of other beneficiaries.
Ms Rwamba has been accused of using Sh21.2 million for renovations and on disputed medical expenses for their mother. However, Mrs Rwamba has accused her brothers of frustrating the process by filing numerous court cases since 2016, hindering the peaceful resolution of the matter.
Family gathering
She says she has tried organising for a family gathering to resolve all the issues before finalising the probate, but it has been unsuccessful because of the ongoing lawsuits filed by Mr Nyota.
Last year, Mr Nyota and his three other siblings went back to the High Court in Malindi to request the removal of Ms Rwamba as the estate administrator due to her failure to distribute the estate. Justice Mugure Thande, however, suggested that the siblings resolve the dispute through mediation, considering it a family matter.
Nevertheless, the mediation has been marred by allegations of bias and inaccurate interim reports, posing a threat to the entire process.
