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Legal Resources Foundation advocates for a change in property ownership laws
Legal Resources Foundation (LRF)
July 29, 2011

The LRF recently wrote to the Herald in response to an article about a woman whose husband sold their matrimonial home without her consent. Under the heading "Co-ownership of spousal property -the only way to enjoy property rights in a marriage", the LRF wrote:

The article in the Herald of 18 July 2011 on property laws, which highlighted the problems faced by spouses who are not registered owners of property in their marriages, made sad reading. The law in Zimbabwe protects the registered title deed holder but does not protect the spouse whose name does not appear on the ownership papers. The Legal Resources Foundation (LRF), an organization which provides legal assistance to the disadvantaged members of society, supports the Constitutional challenge that is sought by the woman quoted in the article. Judging from the cases which the organization deals with and research findings so far, it is clear that unregistered titleholders in marriages, especially women, run the risk of losing properties that they have worked hard to obtain. It is unfortunate that many women are not aware that the person whose name appears on the title deed is the only one who has a say over that property, even though they are in a registered marriage. In a bid to address this injustice, the organization is advocating for a change in the law so that it becomes compulsory for matrimonial property to be co-registered.

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