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Articles: House sold to recover N$168 debt

Posted by admin on Wednesday, July 14, 2004 - 03:17 AM

AN elderly Mariental woman is homeless after a law firm sold her house to recover a N$168 debt she owed a butchery at the town.
In 2000, Sanna Dugeleni failed to settle a N$168 account she had with Ry en Kry Butchery. The butchery owner handed her account over to lawyers Garbers Associates. A summons demanding a N$300 payment was then issued to Dugeleni by the law firm. When she failed to pay this amount as a result of being unemployed, the amount increased to N$3 700 through interest charged by Garbers Associates. Dugeleni, who was in Windhoek this week, said that in 2003 she had paid instalments of N$100 over seven months but had to stop making payments later in the year because she had to pay school fees for her orphaned grandchild. She was shocked when, on January 23 this year, an individual who had attended an auction came to inspect her house. It was only then that she learned that her house had been sold. Garbers Associates had put the house on auction and it was sold to one of the law firm's employees, Melanie Bamberger, for a mere N$1 800. Bamberger, in turn, offered to sell the house back to Dugeleni for N$20 000. However, Dugeleni was unable to raise the money and Bamberger sold the house to someone else for N$25 000. Dugeleni's family has now approached the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) to challenge the "morally corrupt sale" on their behalf. "It is not just about losing the house. I took a loan of N$9 000 from the Build Together Scheme to extend and renovate the house. Do the lawyers expect me to pay the N$9 000 back when they sold my house?" Dugeleni fumed. Lawyer SC Garbers, who owns the law firm, admitted to The Namibian yesterday that it was morally wrong to sell the house because of a N$168 debt. However, he was quick to point out that he was acting on instructions from a client who had paid for the firm's services. "It would have been morally right for Sanna to make some sort of an arrangement to pay off the debt. They just stayed away and I had to carry out orders from my clients. If I go by moral values, I won't be able to operate my firm," Garbers said. He said the law firm got a court order to auction whatever Dugeleni owned as a means to recover the money. "Sanna said nothing in the house belonged to her and it placed us in a dilemma," he responded to a question on why they opted for the house. Dugeleni said the sheriff never visited the house, nor asked whether there was anything that he could confiscate to auction. She claimed that Garbers Associates was guilty of underhand deals as the house had been sold her house to one of their employees. According to Bamberger, who has since joined a law firm in Windhoek, she was not aware of the history behind the house nor was she informed by her employers about the auction. "I just heard somebody mentioning the auction and went to buy the house. After I bought the house, I gave the family the first choice to buy it from me for N$20 000. When the deadline that I gave them passed, I sold the house for N$25 000," she confirmed. Bamberger refused to be drawn into the Build Together scheme debt of Dugeleni. "Build Together can't claim the money from me because the bond of the house was registered with Dugeleni," she said. Aletta Knouwds, the owner of Ry en Kry Butchery, said she only instructed Garbers Associates to recover her N$168. Dugeleni's debt, she said yesterday, was among "a pile [of other debts]" that amounted to between N$12 000 and N$13 000 which were handed to the lawyers after repeated calls by Knouwds to the debtors for payment. "If she (Dugeleni) had paid in time, she wouldn't have lost her house I can't give everyone food and no one pays me. I can't allow my children to end up on the streets because of other people's debts," Knouwds said. Knouwds said she was still waiting to get her N$168 from Garbers Associates. In the meantime, Sanna and her orphaned grandchildren find themselves homeless and on the streets.

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