High Court throws out Van Hoogstraten’s 16-year-old property claim

📅 Published: August 26, 2025

Curated by AllZimNews.com

Van Hoogstraten, represented by Advocate Thabani Mpofu, asked the court to condone his non-compliance and extend the time limits to allow the case to be heard.

But the judge said the delay — spanning almost 16 years — was “inordinate and only partially explained. ” “The horse has bolted – the ship has sailed – and it would offend the sound administration of justice to pretend otherwise,” Justice Mambara ruled.

At the centre of the dispute was Van Hoogstraten’s claim that he lawfully bought the property in 2005 after it was sold in execution to settle a debt owed by the then-owner, Felistas Runyararo James.

While courts initially upheld the sale, the Sheriff’s office later returned Van Hoogstraten’s uncashed cheque and James went on to raise the debt amount and settled it, before transferring the house in 2013 to the Richard Samaita Family Trust, which is now the registered owner.

Justice Mambara noted that the Trust was not part of the current proceedings, making any order against James “a brutum fulmen” – an empty judgement with no practical effect. “It would be absurd to order the first respondent (James) to sign transfer forms for a property she sold 12 years ago and no longer owns.

It would be equally absurd to evict her from a house she doesn’t live in,” he said.

The judge also questioned Van Hoogstraten’s own performance under the disputed sale, noting that he had never actually paid for the property. “He has not performed his obligations… What the applicant is asking the court to do is to order specific performance when he has not paid a cent for the property.

In effect he will get the property for free,” the judgment read, citing an earlier ruling by Justice Priscilla Makoni in related litigation.

Justice Mambara stressed the need for certainty and closure in long-running disputes, adding that Van Hoogstraten had failed to pursue remedies available to him when the transfer to the Trust took place more than a decade ago. “Justice is better served by prompt action rather than protracted slumber.

The legal system cannot indefinitely accommodate a claimant who slips far outside prescribed time frames, especially where third-party rights have intervened,” he said.

Finding the application “meritless and vexatious,” the court ordered Van Hoogstraten to pay James’s legal costs on a punitive attorney-client scale. on Twitter –>. 🔗

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