DISHONEST PLOT SELLER ORDERED TO REFUND K14,000
Written by Millennium on May 5, 2019
DIANA NSOFWA writes
@SunZambian
A LOCAL court has ordered a Lusaka woman to refund the K14,000 she received from another woman in a botched sale of a residential plot.
Mwanja Phiri, 52, of 6 Miles sued Monica Choda, 45, of Kamwala South, Lusaka.
The two were appearing before magistrate Miyanda Banda sitting with Pauline Newa.
Phiri told the court that she sold her 18 by 20 plot to Choda at K13,000 in 2014.
“She gave me a K9,000 and paid the balance in four months.
“I told her to come see me when she was ready in order for us to change ownership,” Phiri testified.
Phiri said in 2015 Choda called her saying she had gone to the plot with her husband and discovered that it was too small to fetch the money she had paid.
“I told her I had used the money and that there was nothing I could do,” Phiri said.
“She called me again asking me to help her sell it at the same price. In 2016 I found a customer for her and sold it. She asked to meet me by Lima Tower but I denied saying we should meet at Central Police”.
“She called me again saying she didn’t want the money I even told her. I wouldn’t manage to keep it. The next day I came to court to buy a summons so that we could sit and talk because I had used the money,” Phiri said.
She said the previous week Choda went to her home asking for her money, but she told her she could only manage to give her K500 monthly said Phiri.
But Choda told the court that she had not asked Phiri to sell the plot.
“She said she would give me back the money. I found an agent to sell it for me, and when he went there he found someone had put a slab on the plot already,” she said.
Choda called the person who had put up the slab the person informed her that they had bought the plot.
“Every time I followed Phiri to ask about my money she would say I had not been around, which was why she had used the money,” Choda said.
The court castigated Phiri for being dishonest.
“That is fraud. The transaction was genuine at first. You should have just washed your hands and asked her to find a buyer herself because your transaction with her had been concluded,” magistrate Banda said.
She ordered Phiri to pay Phiri K14,000 instead of the initial K13,000 she had paid. The court added K1000 as compensation.
“You will pay it in two instalments,” magistrate Banda said.
