35 years after her father's death: daughter to receive share of partner's apartment
The Tel Aviv Family Court has ordered the enforcement of an agreement entitling the daughter of a deceased man to a share of his former partner's apartment sale proceeds. The judge ruled that the father's investment in renovations created a binding obligation for compensation.
A woman whose father passed away in 1991 will receive one-eighth of the value of an apartment belonging to the woman who was his partner, the Tel Aviv Family Court recently ruled. Judge Lior Bringer ordered the enforcement of an agreement reached between the parties regarding the financing of the property's renovation.
The deceased and the defendant, who now suffers from dementia, were in a relationship for about a decade. They lived in the woman's apartment until the partner passed away in June 1991. The plaintiff is the deceased's daughter, while his son chose not to participate in the legal proceedings. The other two defendants are the woman's children from a previous relationship.
Months after the death, the partner drew up a will bequeathing a quarter of her apartment to the deceased's children. After the apartment was sold in May 2021, the daughter filed a lawsuit, claiming an oral agreement existed: in exchange for her father's investment in renovations, they were entitled to a quarter of the apartment's value. Given the sale price of 2.5 million shekels, she claimed 312,000 shekels.
The defense argued that no such agreement was proven and that a 2022 will had superseded the previous one. They also claimed the renovations were minor and that the sale was necessary to cover the defendant's grandson's debts to the gray market.
Judge Bringer rejected the defense's version, citing real-time correspondence that confirmed the agreement. The judge highlighted messages from the defendant's daughter to the plaintiff, such as "We will let you know when the story is over," noting that such communication would be illogical if the plaintiff had no claim to the property.
The judge also rejected the attempt to minimize the renovations, finding they had expanded the apartment by 30%. Furthermore, the claim regarding the grandson's gray market debts was debunked by insolvency records, which showed debts of only 365,000 shekels, mostly owed to banks.
Consequently, the court ordered the defendants to pay the daughter 312,000 shekels, plus 60,000 shekels in legal costs.
• To read the full court ruling – click here
• The article is in collaboration with the Israeli legal website PsakDin
• Plaintiff's counsel: Adv. Or Gal-On
• Defendants' counsel: Adv. Shlomo Dagan and Adv. Ronen Katzaf
• Adv. Maor Gertzenstein practices family law
• The author did not represent in the case
• The editorial team of the PsakDin website took part in the preparation of the article
• ynet is a partner of the PsakDin website
