The Commercial Division of the High Court has ordered the winding up of Jomayi Property Consultants Limited over its failure to pay its debt owed to NC Bank.
The order to wind up comes after NC Bank failed to recover Shs868,250,000 from Jomayi and petitioned the court to declare the company insolvent and unable to pay its debts.
Through their lawyers of AF Mpanga Advocates, NC Bank had on 4th March 2020 petitioned the High Court, saying Jomayi failed to pay the money despite a consent judgment dated 11th September 2019.
In 2018, one Ssemwogerere John Baptist was the registered proprietor of land in Busiro Block 410 Plot 20 located at Ssisa, Wakiso District. The land was mortgaged to NC Bank Uganda Limited to secure loan facilities granted to Value Trading Stores Limited.
The borrower defaulted on payment of its obligations to NC Bank, and the Bank issued a notice of sale of the mortgaged property by public auction or private treaty. Jomayi Property Consultants Ltd l, owned by Joseph Magandazi Yiga, agreed with NC Bank to purchase a parcel of the land measuring 50. 2 acres at 1.506 billion shillings out of Block 410.
Six installments were agreed, worth 251 million Shillings each. Any unpaid installment would attract interest at the prevailing prime lending rate at the time 21.5 percent from the date when the amount became due to payment in full.
It is said that Jomayi failed to honor the agreed payment schedule and in 2018, the Petitioner filed a suit, in the High Court for the recovery of a sum of 1.165 billion shillings, being the unpaid balance on the purchase price of the land.The two parties entered a consent Judgment
A consent Judgment was entered by the two parties and it was agreed that Jomayi pay NC Bank the sum of 925,250,000 shillings in 10 monthly instalments. Following the Company’s default in the payment of the installments, the outstanding amount of 868,250,000 million immediately became due and payable to the Petitioner.
Following the Consent Judgment, Jomayi Property Consultants Limited made some payments to NC Bank but did not make a complete payment on any of the installments. As a result on January 2020, NC Bank served a statutory demand on Jomayi to pay the sum of 868,250,000 shillings within 20 days of the date of service, or insolvency proceedings would be commenced against it.
This could mark the sad ending of one of the biggest real estate companies in Uganda that started in 1997 and has issued over 50,000 mailo land titles to customers and sold over 30,000 plots.
It isn’t the first time Jomayi Property Consults has been embroiled in legal woes. In 2016, several assets belonging to Jomayi Property Consultants, including the company’s office building in Old Kampala, a stone quarry in Bulingombe, Mukono District and a piece of land in Nalumunye, Wakiso District, were put on sale over failure to pay debts amounting to more than Shs1.5b the company acquired from Centenary Bank Limited.
The company is owned by Joseph Magandaazi Yiga, a businessman and entrepreneur who is the managing director and chief executive officer.
On its website, Jomayi Property Consultants noted that it has been in real estate business for 17 years with the company’s area of land development covering a 30Km radius around Kampala city in central region