Source: High Court ruling reopens Norton land dispute –Newsday Zimbabwe
A LONG-RUNNING legal battle over land in Norton has been reignited following a High Court order that reinstated a previously dismissed case between rival property development companies vying for control of Swallowfield Estates.
On July 11, High Court judge Justice Chikowero granted an application to reinstate Case HCH7709/22.
The matter, originally dismissed on February 26, had been brought by Drowack, in a bid to challenge the development agreement involving Cape Valley Construction (Pvt) Ltd, which had gained legal ground to begin work at the estates after obtaining an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) certificate from the Environmental Management Agency (Ema).
The order, issued under Case No HCH978/25 means that the core of the dispute over development rights and contract validity will now proceed to full trial, reopening legal hostilities between rival developers Drowack and Cape Valley over Swallowfield Estates.
The dispute returned to the spotlight earlier this year when Ema issued an EIA certificate to Cape Valley Properties on April 1, a move interpreted as green-lighting its long-awaited development at Swallowfield.
The company had previously celebrated the February dismissal of cases HCH7709/22 and HCH7555/22 as judicial confirmation that its development agreement remained valid and binding.
Cape Valley managing director Primrose Chakuchichi had stated that her company invested more than US$4 million into the project before being abruptly sidelined in October 2023, allegedly by one of the landowners under the influence of a party not listed on the title deed.
“We said, you cannot cancel the contract without giving back our money. Honour us for what we have done,” she said in their company’s newsletter earlier this year.
Cape Valley publicly posted that the February ruling cleared its legal path, but Drowack strongly disagreed, arguing that the EIA certificate was issued despite the unresolved legal status of the land and citing an earlier arbitral award in its favour (HCH1692/24), as well as ongoing litigation (HH2222/25).
Swallowfield representative Isaac Chiduku insisted that “court processes must take place before anything else happens on the ground,” highlighting past High Court decisions (HH214/23, HH215/23) and a Supreme Court ruling (SC219/23) that had restricted Cape Valley and its affiliates from undertaking development on the land.
With Friday’s court order officially reinstating HCH7709/22 for trial, both parties are supposed to return to court to determine the substance of their competing claims.
The judgment specifies that each party will bear its legal costs, possibly in recognition of the case’s convoluted history.
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