The High court in Mombasa has expunged an application by a Bank which wanted to introduce new evidence in a case involving a real estate billionaire James Titus Kisia.
Justice Dorcas Chepkwony ordered the application of Guaranty Trust Bank former, Fina Bank, expunged after it was established that the bank did not seek the court’s leave to file the application.
“This is an old matter which requires disposal. The application has been filed without seeking leave as such it has been expunged because this is going against the law,” said Justice Chepkwony.
The judge made this decision after Kisia’s lawyer Mumo Matemo complained that the matter was taking too long because the bank was not willing to proceed with it.
Last month Kisia told the court that on April 25, 2012 Fina Bank gave him a loan of Sh50 million to develop a real estate in Mombasa.
He said after getting the loan he ventured in the development of the estates but started repaying the loan before the moratorium elapsed.
The billionaire recalled how before the grace period ended he had already repaid Sh1.5 million on the loan account following the agreement he signed with the bank.
Kisia, who has now retired in Machakos, told the court that as he commenced the repayment of the loan GT Bank which took over Fina Bank started writing to him demand letters against the agreement he had signed with Fina.
“I received some letters from GT Bank on April 4, 2014 demanding ‘arrears’ of Sh7.4 million which I did not know,” said Kisia.
He complained that over time he received many loan statements with contradictory figures some dated same day but bearing different loans amounts a situation which made it difficult for him to understand what was the actual loan debts owed at any given time.
Kisia accused the bank officials of withdrawing Sh10.6 million money from his children’s account which he had credited and mysteriously credited to my loan account.
“Fina Bank now GT Bank also withdrew money from the account of my children Christine, Philip and Samuel secretly on April 30 2014 totaling to Sh10,631,269 and credited to my account purportedly to pay arreas in my loan,” said Kisia.
He complained that the bank did an illegality because when he was taking the loan at no time had he stated that his children were his co-directors nor was there any agreement that they secretly withdraw the money from his children’s account.
Kisia explained that the bank had no authority whether in the letter of offer or elsewhere for the bank to charge or raise any installment or installments on the facility during the 12 months grace period..
“I was dismayed to see that notwithstanding the negligence in accounting and without communication to me, the bank had made an allegation to creditors’ bureau to the effect that I had defaulted in making loan repayments,” said Kisia.
Kisia asked the court to intervene and compel the bank to avail the letter of offer and compensate him for the mess because does not owe the bank.
By Joseph Kamolo
