The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Tema Regional Office has rolled out public education process to empower women on the tenets of the Intestate Succession Law, PNDC Law 111.
Mr. John Ato Breboh, Senior Principal Investigator at CHRAJ, Tema Regional Office said even though the law has been in force since 1985, most people, especially women, were ignorant of it, making them victims of illegal sharing of properties of their spouses when they pass away without a will.
He said no family head or a family member has the right to share the properties of a deceased person without the acquisition of a Letter of Administration from a court, as that constitutes intermeddling, which was a crime in Ghana.
Speaking at sensitisation engagement with members of the Adom Women’s Group in Tema on the Intestate Succession Law, Mr. Breboh explained that the Letter of Administration could be applied for jointly by at least three groups of persons, namely the family head of the deceased, the children, the spouse and heir apparent at the court, before the properties and other benefits of the deceased could be accessed by the dependants.
He indicated that the PNDC Law 111, which was currently under review, was instituted to help solve some anomalies and difficulties faced in property sharing using CAP 127, and 129 which covered sharing under customary and Mohammedan marriage, as well as patrilineal or matrimonial lineage.
He said with those sharing patterns, the estate of a deceased person was shared by family heads to suit their parochial interest at the expense of the spouse and surviving children.
He stated, however, that due to lack of knowledge of and failure to adhere to the tenets of the Intestate Succession Law, some family members were still sharing properties with their formulas.
The CHRAJ Senior Principal Investigator said spouses and children should seek redress from courts to ensure that the correct thing was done by families according to the law, adding that the PNDC Law 111 has made provisions that when a spouse dies, the house, cars, and other properties he or she was using with the spouse and children before the death automatically belongs to the spouse.
He further added that all other properties aside from the matrimonial one would then be shared into 16 equal parts, out of which nine parts would be shared among all the children of the deceased and three of it would go to the spouse. The Principal Senior Investigator of CHRAJ further said the remaining four parts would be shared two each among the deceased parents and extended family.
He explained that if the deceased was survived only by a spouse without children, he or she was entitled to 50 percent of the properties, while the remaining half would be shared equally by the family and parents.
The Intestate Succession Law, he stated, also provided that if a person died intestate without a spouse, his or her children would take 12 portions out of the 16 equal parts and the remaining four portions shared for the parents and family.
“If one dies without children and spouse, the parents and family will take 50 percent each of his or her properties, if they die without a family, spouse, parents or children, everything goes to the state,” he stated.
Mr. Breboh also reminded family heads that they could not eject a spouse from a family house he or she was occupying with the deceased spouse right after the death occur as the law make provisions for at least six months, while landlords or company management must also give the bereaved spouse at least three months to vacate a rented or company apartment.
GNA
