Property Rights

No ! According to the Protected Tenants ( Consolidated Version) Act of 1972, even an owner , or one of the owners of a home used for residential purposes can become a protected tenant if he loses his ownership rights following a court judgment . However, this cannot apply where the owners are a couple and there is an action to divide ownership in the family home. This is because the courts narrowed down the interpretation of the legislation over the years and the act itself was amended accordingly in the 1990’s to abolish the concept of protect tenancy in connection with the division of a couple’s family home.

The Supreme Court has held that neither a wife or children have a right to be accommodated in the family home if a plea has been made to end the partnership in it. They have a right to alternative accommodation only ; it is merely a financial right, and they can claim it as part of the maintenance plea against the husband/father.

A wife can take legal action against her husband if he sells their joint property, the family home registered in his name only, without her knowledge. The plea should be directed against the purchaser as well as the husband and would be aimed at preventing or cancelling the registration of the purchaser’s rights regarding the family home, depending on whether the change of ownership had been carried out or not. If the purchaser bought the property in good faith this would make it harder to prevent or cancel the registration of ownership but as the purchase was a relative of the husband it is most unlikely that he acted in good faith.

The general rule is that where couples marry after 1974 the principles of the Spouses’ Property Relations’ Act of 1973 apply. According to the act property acquired by one side before the marriage remains theirs solely and is not joint. However, according to recent caselaw, where the property in question is the marital home, it may be regarded as joint property despite this where, for example, the couple lived in it for many years . This may also be possible if the marriage is short but the side in whose name it was not registered had some financial link to it or there was some specific intention for it to be joint property .

For a spouse to have rights in an apartment registered in the other spouse’s name before they married a special test developed by the Supreme Court must be applied.
Proof of a specific intention for the property to be shared is needed. Without this proof the person in whose name the property is registered will be regarded as the exclusive owner. The test is the same test as that devised by the Supreme Court regarding property received by one spouse by way of gift or inheritance during the marriage – and in which the other spouse claims to have rights.

Yes, sometimes, depending on the circumstances. Although property owned before marriage usually remains individual and not communal, the wife may have equal rights in the marital home if the marriage is long-established and it is the only real estate owned by the couple, even if the husband purchased it before they married. The Supreme Court held this was so in the Hadari case in the nineties where the husband had purchased the family home a year before they married. The husband had received possession of the apartment just before the wedding and the couple had lived in it throughout their marriage. The wife had worked and earned no less than the husband. In these circumstances, it was held, the wife had equal rights in the home as the principles of marital partnership – which apply to couples married before 1974 –applied to the case.

If a wife purchases a home in her name only and can prove that she paid for it, then, providing that the couple are used to separating their finances, it should be protected against proceedings started later by creditors against her husband.

Both spouses have the right to buy the other’s share in the property before a third party can under the Land Law of 1969. If by chance, both wish to buy out each other’s share they can reach an agreement regarding this and if they encounter problems they can ask for court intervention in the dispute.

No ! If rights in the apartment were transferred to the son-in-law in return for marriage or given to him as a gift by his bride or her parents and registered in his name at the Land Registry , then the rights are his, and he cannot be deprived of them. A plea to gain back those rights is doomed to failure, whether made at the rabbinical court or the family court.

No ! If one spouse invested more than the other in the purchase of an apartment registered in their joint name ,or paid for renovations, then the general rule is that the party cannot get back the equivalent value of his/her investment when the partnership in the property ends . There are exceptions to this general rule. For example, if there is a property relations agreement made beforehand or afterwards by the parties which expressly states this, then it is possible. Another possibility exists – if a condition was made in the land registry regarding this, or if the spouses’ rights were registered in proportion to their investment in the first place.