Boakye Mattress Trust Fund secures vital rent preservation order against FBN Bank, others

The Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed an application seeking to stay the execution of an order for inspection and preservation of rent ordered by the High Court in favour of Edward Osei Boakye Trust Fund against FBN Bank and three others.

The High Court presided over by Justice Eric Kyei Baffour in July 2019 granted the application for inspection and preservation of Rent filed by the Edward Osei Boakye Trust Fund, Most Rev. Dr. Robert Aboagye Mensah, Most Reverend Dr. Joseph Osei Bonsu and Rt. Rev Daniel Yinkah Sarfo against Yaw Boakye, FBN Bank Ghana limited, West One Ghana limited and Air Côte d'Ivoire.

The court subsequently ordered the Registrar of the High Court to “enter and inspect Property Numbers 6 and 7, independence Avenue, Airport, Accra for the purposes of the following:

1. To identify all the tenants in the said property.

2. To inspect tenancy documents and receipt books upon which the tenants have been placed in occupation”.

The Judge further ordered that future rent due the 1st defendant/Respondent (Yaw Boakye) should not be paid to him by the 3rd Defendant (FBN Bank Ghana Limited) and 4th Defendant (Air Côte d'Ivoire), but should rather be paid into court, and same placed into an interest-bearing Account, till the final determination of the suit, or until such time as the court may direct.

The 1st Defendant, Yaw Boakye, then applied to the Court of Appeal for stay of execution and this application was dismissed in December 2019. The three member panel presided over by Justice B.A. Ayensu stated that:

“We have examined all the processes filed by the Parties in this application particularly the ruling of the High Court. We do not see how the 1st Appellant/Applicant’s appeal will be unreparably prejudiced if the directions contained in the ruling are carried out pending the determination of the appeal. On the contrary, we are of the view that a refusal of the application will enhance an equal balance in the competing interest of the parties pending the determination of their substantive rights in the appeal’.

The appeals court then awarded a cost of 3000 cedis against the applicant.

The case was then escalated to the Supreme Court which also dismissed the application, thus requiring rent from the Bank and all other tenants paid into court pending the outcome of an action seeking to evict at all the tenants due to non-payment of rent by Yaw Boakye - himself a tenant of Edward Osei Boakye Trust Fund. The Justices of the Supreme Court: Marful Sau (Presiding), Dordzie, Amegatcher, Kotey and Owusu in their ruling stated that,

“We are of the opinion that the application filed on behalf of the 1st Defendant/Applicant is incompetent and same is therefore dismissed”.

The apex court also awarded cost of 5000 cedis to be given to the Edward Osei Boakye Trust Fund and the three Reverend Ministers.

Checks at the court indicates that FBN Bank and the other tenants are yet to comply with the courts directive on payment of rent to the court due to the multiple applications filed by Yaw Boakye. The last application is before the Court of Appeal for hearing on 24th June, 2020 and once that is dealt with by the Court, all tenants will have no choice but to pay accrued and future rent into court instead of making these payments to Yaw Boakye.