Dear Mirror Lawyer, Two years ago, I married the man of my dreams. He is everything I have ever dreamed of, and I love him dearly. We had the most beautiful ceremony in the garden of a five-star hotel in Accra.
Everything was perfect: food, venue, music and wardrobe. The only problem was my mother–in–law's face in all the pictures. She wore a frown throughout the ceremony.
Before we got married, I noticed a change in my mother-in-law’s behaviour towards me, but I attributed it to the stress in planning a wedding.
The only time she spoke to me after the wedding was two days ago because the man of my dreams has just died.
My mother-in-law called to inform me to start looking for alternative accommodation because her son had informed her that he built our current home in her honour. Please advise me; my child and I are about to be homeless.
Adjoa, Koforidua.
Dear Adjoa,
Let me start by offering my deepest condolences for your loss. It is for spouses like you that the Intestate Succession Law (PNDCL 111) was enacted. This law offers protection for widows and widowers and their children.
In case your husband is found to have died without a Will, PNDC Act 111 will be adopted as his Will, and his property will be shared in accordance with the terms of that law.
From your narrative, the house in which you live is your husband’s self-acquired property. Section 16A prohibits any person from ejecting a spouse or child from the matrimonial home before the distribution of the estate of a deceased person, whether testate or intestate.
Where the matrimonial home is the self-acquired property of the deceased, the prohibition is absolute. Section 17 further criminalises such acts, and your mother-in-law can be convicted upon summary conviction.
The law further provides that if the deceased died leaving only one house, that house is for the surviving spouse and children absolutely.
Where the deceased dies leaving more than one house, the surviving spouse and children will be required to choose one house for themselves and the remaining houses will be distributed according to the provisions of the Act.
It appears from your narrative that your deceased husband left one house where you lived together before his demise.
Your mother-in-law cannot claim that house on a mere assertion that the son told her that he was building a house in her memory.
If that were the intention of the son, he should have transferred the house into the name of the mother and placed her in possession for all to know that the house has been gifted to her.
In the absence of any other concrete evidence to demonstrate the gift, the provisions of PNDC Act 111 will be the law applicable. That implies that you and your child will inherit that house as of right, and nobody can dislodge you and make you homeless.
Get a lawyer to write a letter warning your mother-in-law and any in-laws from harassing you or intermeddling in the estate of the deceased. If they continue with any harassment, the law will deal with them.
