The matrimonial and resulting property row between top banker Nyasha Makuvise and his estranged wife Clarieta Makuvise is now creating yet another case in the High Court, this time over how property lodged in a private company owned by both parties can be handled.
Mrs Makuvise, who has said she only recently discovered her husband had been cohabiting since 2019 with a younger woman, Tsuu Machingura, whom he met when she was a friend of the couple’s daughter, is now trying to freeze any sale of matrimonial assets and potential assets.
Among these is a 41,43ha property, Lot GA of Guilford, owned by a company called Grillmore Properties (Private) Limited, the company being owned by the couple, with Mr Mukuvise having 80 percent of the shares, and with the couple being the two directors.
Mrs Makuvise claims that Mr Makuvise told her he was suffering from advanced prostate cancer and needed a lot of money to pay medical bills, and that she had reluctantly agreed to sale of some assets.
But she has now discovered he is not ill, and she wants the assets preserved.
Mr Makuvise is largely basing his right to offer the property for sale on the basis that Grillmore, as a company, is an independent entity from the couple and particular from the matrimonial property disputes and that he has a long standing legal appointment by the company to be its agent in disposing of the property.
He, therefore, denies that Mrs Makuvise has any legal standing to stop him carrying out the wishes of the company, and goes further saying he is obliged to carry them out.
He sees the evidence so far submitted by Mrs Makuvise, in the form of affidavits from friends and copies of WhatsApp messages, that he had claimed he needed large sums for medical expenses to be irrelevant and should not be considered by the High Court, which should simply look at the right of a company to sell assets.
He denies any possible allegation of asset stripping.
Mrs Makuvise’s legal position is basically that the company is nothing more than a way of holding matrimonial assets and had no other function, and that its assets are in fact matrimonial assets and should not be disposed of without the agreement of both, which she is not ready to give.
She also objected to the fact that the same lawyer is representing her husband and the company in this action.
A judge will eventually have to decide the exact status of both the company and the assets it holds.
Mrs Makuvise is also suing Ms Machingura for US$100 000 in an adultery claim. – The Herald
