By Bahle Gama
The office of the Master of the High Court has reported to the Commission of Inquiry that a woman and executor manipulated her stepchildren into writing affidavits that would give her all their father’s assets in an estate.
Assistant Master Thobeka said the woman, Nomvula Phiri reported her late husband Lawrence Muthimunye Phiri’s estate at their office after he died in 2021.
In the process, she was appointed as the executor of the estate.
It was then that she coerced her stepchildren to write and sign the affidavits which were later recalled and changed by the children after obtaining legal advice from a lawyer and having a full understanding of what they meant.
The Commission chastised Dlamini for not explaining to the beneficiaries in time what the affidavits would have meant for them.
According to the three children, Nozizwe, Nombulelo, and Bonsile Phiri, their stepmother had no child born in her marriage with their father and they are his only remaining children from outside the marriage.
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They told the Commission that their father left behind two rental flats at Mpolonjeni, a grocery store, a motor vehicle, and vacant land next to the family homestead on a Swazi Nation Land (SNL).
“After the meeting that was held in 2021, we elected our mother as the executor and that was the last time we ever met.
We are here to find out what has been happening to the file because we haven’t received anything to date,” submitted Bonsile.
The siblings disclosed that they were no longer on talking terms with their stepmother, yet they all used to get along when their father was alive.
The Assistant Master told the Commission that Lawrence had also left E1,051.91 in a bank account at Building Society and the grocery store and rental flats have continued to yield rentals.
However, when the office contacted Nomvula to remit the rentals so they could be put into the account at the Master’s office as is the protocol.
“She told us she is a wife, and the money helps her to survive. That was the last we heard from her because she disappeared and the estate was unwinded,” said Dlamini.
Dlamini admitted that the office never explained to Nomvula that there is a provision for maintenance when she remits rentals until the estate is winded up as per the procedure.
She reiterated that Nomvula had also misled her stepchildren into writing affidavits forfeiting inheritance, giving her everything.
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“The children withdrew their affidavits, and we cancelled the liquidation account that had been prepared to distribute all the assets to their stepmother. That is where the estate had stopped,” she said.
The Commission questioned what the procedure is when an executor fails to comply with their duties, to which Dlamini said the office writes and reminds them and failure to comply would result in their removal.
However, the challenge in removing Nomvula as an executor would be when the newly appointed executor would have to collect the rentals.
“It would prove difficult for the executor to do so because the rental flats are at the homestead at Mpolonjeni,” she said.
The Commission advised that Nomvula be summoned to answer the allegations and the way forward on the estate as soon as possible.
