According to Lawyer Wayoe Ghanamannti, Castro must be officially proclaimed deceased before anybody may lawfully profit from his assets. He also said that the family stands to lose if they continue to delay having the courts pronounce their Castro dead. They (the family) may face legal penalties for interfering with his (Castro’s) estate without first going through the proper channels.
Lawyer Wayoe discussed the laws of a missing person and how their inheritance should be handled to Mz Gee on Simply Showbiz. He said: “Anybody who is living in Castro’s house today, as a brother or sister or mother or wife, they are just living there by grace and by mercy. They don’t have legal rights. So until they take steps to administer his estate. One day, they will be found guilty of intermeddling in his estate.
“How can you be there, and you don’t have the legal rights to interact or deal with his estate? The fact that they are dealing with his estate today, driving his car and sleeping in his house and all that, they must be minded that it is not lawful. They can only have the legal right if they have gone to court to get letters of probate to administer his estate,” he continued.
According to Lawyer Wayoe, the core of presumption of death comes down to the missing person’s personal things, assets, and estate. As a result, it is critical for family members to take the initial step toward ensuring that the correct thing is done.
“Because if there is anybody who has to benefit from Castro’s estate … And as you said, Castro is a musician. His music as we are talking about now is making money on YouTube. And just like all great musicians, Micheal Jackson, Bob Marley, they are dead and gone, but their music is still making returns. So Castro’s estate is very important. And it is his family members who will benefit from the administration of this estate.”
He said that this is why the legislation has made it mandatory for anyone who would directly profit to go to court and seek an injunction. That command, he claims, will lead to the conclusion that Castro is no longer alive.
He also disclosed that if the family refuses to cooperate, the State may proceed with the petition. He provided four grounds for the State to bring before the court. In response, the court will instruct the Registrar of Births and Deaths to issue a death certificate, thus closing the chapter. The reasons will be as follows:
- They cannot find him.
- They cannot find his body, his corpse or skeleton or anything pointing that it is him.
- The last time we saw him, we saw him going somewhere, and that was the last place we saw him.
- They were witnesses like Asamoah Gyan and his friends who were there. Who can testify that, yes, we came here with Castro and Juliet Banda. And after a while, we can not see them.
Section 3 of Ghana’s Evidence Act, 1975 (N. R. C. D. 323) empowers the court to pronounce and assume a person dead after seven years.
Castro’s family has refused to pronounce him dead seven years after he went missing. They think their relative is still alive and will return shortly.
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SOURCE: ATLFM ONLINE
