CASE DIGEST - PROPERTY LAW: ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATE; CAN AN ADMINISTRATOR /TRIX ADMINISTER PROPERTY NOT COVERED BY THE GRANT OF LETTERS OF ADMINISTRATION?

CASE DIGEST - PROPERTY LAW: ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATE; CAN AN ADMINISTRATOR /TRIX ADMINISTER PROPERTY NOT COVERED BY THE GRANT OF LETTERS OF ADMINISTRATION?

MRS. JEMILAT FOLARIN v. MR. FARAJDEEN AYODELE AGUSTO (surviving administrator of the Estate of Late L. B. Agusto)

SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA
(ARIWOOLA; OKORO; AUGIE; ABUBAKAR; AGIM, JJ.SC)

Background Fact

The original plaintiffs (now deceased) being the two surviving administratrixes of the estate of their father, Late Chief Imam L. B. Agusto who died intestate on 26 July 1971, commenced this action at the High Court of Lagos State (trial court). Upon their demise, Mr. Farajdeen Ayodele Agusto (the Respondent) was substituted by an order of court. At the trial court, the Respondent made a case that their predecessor in title and father, the late L. B. Agusto, as lessor, entered into a lease agreement with Mrs. Jemilat Folarin's (the Appellant) late husband over four plots of land at Isolo, Lagos. The leasehold was for a period of ninety-nine years at an annual rent of 5 pounds for the first twenty years subject to revision every twenty years. During the lifetime of the two signatories to the lease, the Appellant's deceased husband failed to pay rent on the property to the late Chief Imam Agusto. The late Chief Imam Agusto later died, and the Appellant's husband still failed to
pay rent to the Respondent as administratrixes inspite of repeated demands until he also died. Before his death, the Appellant's husband had erected a building on two out of the four plots and fenced the land. The Appellant, upon the death of her husband, continued in possession of the land.