Bank wins case to take pensioners’ house

TWO Windhoek pensioners are now at risk of being evicted from the house where they have lived for nearly 40 years, after losing a long legal battle to stave off losing their home to First National Bank Namibia.

Pensioners Jason and Martha Mukapuli are again facing the threat of being evicted from their home after the Supreme Court on Friday last week dismissed an appeal through which they were trying to hold onto the house in which they have been living since 1979.

With the dismissal of the couple’s appeal, FNB Namibia will be able to have a court order for their eviction from their house carried out, if the bank wants to proceed with such a drastic action.

The couple remained adamant yesterday that they no longer owed the bank any money as a result of a home loan that they received from SWA Building Society in September 1998, and that they have repaid the money they borrowed – and some more.

“The bank wants to get rich through me. […] I owe the bank nothing. It is the bank that owes me,” Mrs Mukapuli said.

In its judgement on Friday, the Supreme Court did not agree with that view, though.

On behalf of FNB, the bank’s communications manager, Elzita Beukes, yesterday said the bank was awaiting legal guidance before it decides what its next step in the matter would be.

“It is unfortunate that no planning for this reality had occurred in the last years by the family concerned, knowing the real circumstances of continued arrears. It is hoped that a suitable solution will soon be found,” Beukes added.

Jason and Martha Mukapuli – now aged 71 and 68 respectively – obtained a loan of N$151 950 from Swabou in September 1998 to have additions done to their house.

Although Mr Mukapuli was 52 at the time the loan was taken and Mrs Mukapuli was 50, the loan was to be repaid over a period of 30 years.

With Swabou, which was taken over by FNB in 2003, initially charging interest on the loan at an annual rate of 21,25%, the interest payments that the couple had to make amounted to more than N$32 000 a year at the beginning of the repayment period.

The loan agreement that the couple signed also included a provision that Swabou would be allowed to charge compound interest – interest to be paid on interest – on interest that was in arrears.

According to Mrs Mukapuli, she and her husband paid back N$249 882 to Swabou on the loan of N$151 950, and in her view, the loan had been fully repaid, acting judge of appeal Johan Strydom recounted in the judgement delivered on Friday.

FNB, however, claimed that the couple were in arrears with the repayment of the borrowed money, and as a result sued them in the High Court.

The couple tried to defend the case without legal representation, but in September 2009, a judgement was granted against them in an amount of N$177 743. An order was also given that their house could be sold to raise money to pay the debt to the bank.

In May 2010, the bank had the house sold at an auction – to itself. FNB bought the house for N$262 000 at the auction.

In June 2010, a lawyer then representing the couple made a written offer to the bank to pay off N$80 000 on the amount they owed at that stage, with the rest of the debt to be paid in monthly instalments after that. The bank refused the offer, and proceeded in August 2010 to obtain a court order to have the couple evicted from the house.

Resisting the move to force them out of their house, the Mukapulis appealed to the Supreme Court against the initial order granted against them in the High Court.

In the Supreme Court’s judgement, acting judge of appeal Strydom noted that the couple’s stance that they were only required to pay simple interest on the loan, instead of compound interest, resulted in their calculations of how much they owed on the loan being palpably incorrect.

Also, their signing of documents which they later said were not properly explained to them and did not understand, was of their own doing, judge Strydom remarked.

With the threat of eviction resurrected, Mrs Mukapuli stuck to her stance yesterday: “We will not move, because where should we go to? We have finished paying.”