HARARE - Illegal occupants at Kingsdale Farm in Norton were left homeless yesterday after they were served with an eviction order, following numerous court directives.
The farm owner Pieter Nicholas Nel’s lawyer Cuthbert Mpame confirmed that he had served the 145 occupants with the eviction order.
The case has been in court on several occasions, before the Constitutional Court in October last year gave an order for the ejectment of the residents, after the State conceded that the land had been illegally acquired.
In the ruling, members of the Kingsdale Housing Cooperative were given 30 days to vacate the 161 828-hectare farm.
Minister of Lands and Rural Resettlement, Norton Town Council, Chegutu Rural District Council and the Registrar of Deeds had not opposed Nel’s application, admitting that the farm had been improperly acquired.
After the court order, Nel and government officials held a series of meetings, where the parties agreed that the affected families be given the right to buy their pieces of land.
The matter, however, took a new twist after some of the families reportedly reneged on the agreement, opting to grab the land for free.
Nel filed an urgent court application, from which High Court Judge David Mangota ruled in his favour by consent of both parties last week.
“My title to this urban land was duly confirmed by the Constitutional Court which nullified the acquisition of my land by the minister of Lands and Rural Resettlement. Pursuant to the constitutional order, I sold the piece of land to Maparahwe Properties,” Nel said.
The occupants were initially ordered by the court not to sell, build any temporary or permanent structures on the farm in August last year, but since then they have been acting in defiance of the directive.