Inheritance

There are two levels of appeal in the civil court system for estate cases. The District court hears appeals from the court of first instance, the family court, and the Supreme Court hears appeals on District Court rulings.

Religious courts have their own one-tier appeal system – the Greater Rabbinical Court for example, hears appeals on rulings by the first instance court, the local district rabbinical court.

Yes ! In general jurisdiction over inheritance lies within a civil framework – either via the inheritance registrar or the family court, unless all those affected give their consent for a religious court to deal with the matter. What, however constitutes, consent – lack of objection, or positive agreement ? This question was put before the Supreme Court of Justice in 2002 when a woman claiming to be the common-law wife of the deceased petitioned there, after losing her appeal at the Greater Rabbinical Court . There she had unsuccessfully claimed that the district rabbinical court had lacked jurisdiction to grant the inheritance order dividing the deceased’s estate between her children, all of whom gave written consent to it. The Greater Rabbinical Court said that objection made after the application had been published in the press as required, and an order had been granted, was too late.

The Supreme Court of Justice, however, disagreed and held that positive written consent is required by all those concerned. To block rabbinical court jurisdiction it is sufficient for one concerned party not to supply written consent – even if an inheritance order has already been granted.

An application for an order enforcing distribution of the estate whether by will or according to the terms of the Inheritance Law is to be made to the Inheritance Registrar in the area in which the deceased lived. If the deceased did not live in Israel but left property in Israel the application for the order should be made to the Inheritance Registrar serving the area in which the property (real estate, bank account etc ) is located. If property is left in several places, once application is made in the area relating to one item then it normally holds for the rest of the property, too.

In certain cases application must be made to the family court. If objection is filed to an application for an order to divide the estate then the case is automatically transferred from the Inheritance Registrar to the family court.

The religious court can gain jurisdiction in certain situations.

If that person ‘s domicile was Israel, or if he was not domiciled in Israel, he/she lived  overseas but  he/she owned  property in Israel.