Wakilii

Agnes Nankya and Another v Amisi Luyombo and Others (Civil Appeal No. 166 of 2020)

Court of Appeal · [2025] UGCA 372 · 2025 Appeal Dismissed ✦ AI-generated summary ↓ Download
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
Civil appeal from a High Court (Land Division) judgment that dismissed the appellants' suit and allowed the respondents' counterclaim.
Decision
Appeal dismissed; the trial court's orders cancelling the certificate of title, declaring the land to belong to the Sebatta sub-clan, and awarding UGX 150,000,000 general damages were upheld.

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Cited — treatment unverified cited in 1 (treatment unverified) Derived from citing cases in the Wakilii corpus — not an assertion that this case is good law.

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Holding

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and upheld cancellation of the appellants' certificate of title. The second appellant could not claim the statutory bona fide purchaser defence under section 181 of the Registration of Titles Act because his interest was never registered; the defence protects only a registered proprietor. On the evidence, including the registered proprietor's own will declaring the land clan Butaka burial land not for sale, the property belonged to the Sebatta sub-clan, not the late Nuwa Kiwanuka's estate. The counterclaim was not time-barred: under section 25 of the Limitation Act time ran only from discovery of the fraud. The UGX 150,000,000 general damages award was upheld.

Facts

The late Nuwa Kiwanuka was registered as proprietor of land at Kibuga Block 33 Plot 287, Mutundwe, on 4 November 1971. The respondents, members of the Sebatta sub-clan of the Ngeye clan, claimed the land was clan Butaka (burial) ground held since 1900 and that Kiwanuka had only been its caretaker, registering it fraudulently. In his will, Kiwanuka declared the land to be burial ground that no one could sell, leaving it in the care of his children; a later will by caretaker Samson Busungwe Kibirige confirmed this. After Kiwanuka's death the first appellant, as administratrix, included the land in his estate and sold it to the second appellant and his late wife. The respondents lodged caveats, which were removed without notice to them, and the title was rapidly re-registered. They counterclaimed for cancellation of title. The trial court cancelled the title, found the appellants were not bona fide purchasers for value, held the land belonged to the sub-clan, and awarded UGX 150,000,000 general damages.

Issues

  1. Whether the second appellant was a bona fide purchaser for value without notice of the suit property.
  2. Whether the trial court properly cancelled the certificate of title registered in the estate of the late Nuwa Kiwanuka.
  3. Whether the suit property belonged to the estate of the late Nuwa Kiwanuka or to the Sebatta sub-clan.
  4. Whether the respondents' counterclaim for recovery of the land was time-barred under the Limitation Act.
  5. Whether the trial court's award of UGX 150,000,000 in general damages had a legal basis.

Orders

  • Appeal dismissed.
  • The decision and orders of the trial court are upheld.

Key headnotes

Land & Property — Bona Fide Purchaser for Value — Defence available only to registered proprietor
The statutory defence of a bona fide purchaser for value without notice under section 181 of the Registration of Titles Act is available only to a person who is registered as proprietor; an unregistered purchaser whose interest has not been registered cannot rely on it.
Land & Property — Bona Fide Purchaser — Duty of inquiry and constructive notice
A purchaser must make exhaustive inquiries into the status of the land before purchase; one who has actual notice of an encumbrance and abstains from inquiries a prudent purchaser would have made is fixed with constructive notice of the fraud and loses the defence.
Land & Property — Certificate of Title — Conclusiveness displaced by proprietor's own will
Although a certificate of title is conclusive evidence of ownership under section 59 of the Registration of Titles Act, the title may be cancelled where the registered proprietor's own will declares the land to be clan Butaka burial ground that no one has power to sell.
Civil Procedure — Limitation — Fraud postpones running of time until discovery
Under section 25 of the Limitation Act, where an action is based on or concealed by fraud, the limitation period does not begin to run until the plaintiff has discovered the fraud, or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it.
Civil Procedure — Limitation — Point of law touching jurisdiction may be raised on appeal
Limitation is a point of law that goes to the court's jurisdiction to entertain a suit and may be raised on appeal even where it was not raised before the trial court, as an exception to the general rule against new grounds on appeal.
Damages & Quantum — General Damages — Appellate interference
An appellate court will only interfere with a trial court's award of general damages where the trial court departed from the established principles governing such awards or where there would otherwise be a miscarriage of justice.

Legislation cited (10)

  • Registration of Titles Act s.176(c)
  • Registration of Titles Act s.181
  • Registration of Titles Act s.59
  • Limitation Act s.5
  • Limitation Act s.6(2)
  • Limitation Act s.11(1)
  • Limitation Act s.16
  • Limitation Act s.25
  • Limitation Act s.29
  • Court of Appeal Rules rule 86

Cases cited (14)

  • Kampala Bottlers Ltd v Damanico (U) Ltd (Civil Appeal No. 22 of 1992)
  • Interfreight Forwarders (U) Ltd v African Development Bank Ltd (Civil Appeal No. 33 of 1992)
  • Makula International Ltd v His Eminence Cardinal Nsubuga and Another (Civil Appeal No. 4 of 1981)
  • Robert Cousens v Attorney General (Civil Appeal No. 8 of 1999)
  • Kibimba Rice Ltd v Umar Salim (Civil Appeal No. 17 of 1992)
  • Bromell v Bromell [1942] 1 K.B 370
  • David Sejjaka Nalima v Rebecca Musoke (Civil Appeal No. 12 of 1985)
  • Hajji Abdu Nasser Katende v Vithaldas Haridas & Co Ltd (Civil Appeal No. 84 of 2003)
  • Hannington Njuki v William Nyanzi (HCCS No. 431 of 1996)
  • Jones v Smith [1841] 1 Hare 43
  • Ndimwibo and 3 Others v Ampaire (Civil Appeal No. 65 of 2011) [2014] UGCA 46
  • Uganda Commercial Bank v Kigozi [2002] 1 EA 305
  • Madhvani International v Attorney General [2012] UGSC 14
  • Uganda Railways Corporation v Ekwaru D.O. and 5104 Others (Civil Appeal No. 7 of 2019)
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.