Civil Case (B.Y.) 62594-05-22 Dana Sari Almoznino v. Meirav Noy Avraham

In the upheavals of the building - between the heirs andthe father:

1. It's an Israeli family story about the collapse of a building and a piece of real estate. The defendants, a sister and two brothers, inherited the ownership rights in a three-room residential apartment that was located in a condominium built at 36-38 Serlin Street in Holon in the 1960s [hereinafter: the "Apartment"].  In accordance with the agreement entered into with the defendants on August 23, 2021, the plaintiff, who was only 19 years old at the time, purchased their rights in the apartment from them [hereinafter: the "Sale Agreement"].  The delivery of possession of the apartment was set in the sale agreement for October 7, 2021, 45 days after it was signed.
2. The plaintiff's father, an accountant by education whose affidavit was described as someone who "served and continues to serve in senior management positions and is knowledgeable in such transactions" [hereinafter: "the father"], was the one who initiated the transaction, financed it, managed it, and acted as his own in a bank account opened in the plaintiff's name only for this purpose [see the plaintiff's testimony at p. 23 of the minutes of the evidentiary hearing, hereinafter: "the minutes", lines 19-28, her answers in the minutes of the pre-trial hearing of February 16, 2023, p.  4, lines 9-15, below: "The pre-trial transcript", and the father's explanations on pages 19-20 of the transcript], as to the father's testimony - "the goal was to look for an apartment of evacuation and reconstruction in some range", "In fact this whole event was a desire to buy an apartment for my daughter, that is the essence, and then I looked through a realtor for an apartment that has a good chance in the foreseeable future for Pinui-Binui, And that's what he offered me." Similarly, the father's aspiration, as it was given to the broker in that transaction from the outset, was to have a property with "a chance of evacuation and reconstruction in the long term as well" [see the pre-trial transcript, pp.  2-3, and Appendix A to the father's affidavit].
3. On September 12, 2021, part of the condominium collapsed, although not the same part where the apartment is located, but the entire building was declared dangerous, evacuated from its occupants and forbidden to enter. This disturbing event was even the center of public attention for some time.
4. The plaintiff completed the transaction for the purchase of the apartment in December 2021, the ownership rights in the apartment were registered in her name at the Land Registry Office in January 2022, and at the beginning of May 2022 she signed an evacuation-construction agreement with Aura Renewing Israel in a tax appeal [hereinafter: "Aura"].
5. In accordance with the agreement with Aura, the plaintiff is entitled to receive a new apartment in a new building to be built by Aura on the land whose size will exceed the area of the previous apartment that the defendants sold to the plaintiff by no less than 12 square meters, including a safe room, and will be supplemented with a 12 square meter sun terrace, conventional parking, and a storage room of 4 square meters [see paragraph 10 of the agreement with Aura].
6. In the agreement with her, Aura also undertook to pay the plaintiff until the construction of the new apartment was completed, and every month, rent that was finally set at ILS 4,500, and that the father admitted that the plaintiff had received them at least from July 1, 2022 [see the pre-trial transcript, p. 1, lines 28-29].
7. In an advertisement by Aura on the Yad 2 website presented by the defendants, it sailed as follows: "In September 2021, a residential building collapsed on Serlin Street in Holon, only a day and a half after it was evicted from the residents due to suspicious noises and cracks. About three months after the collapse of the building, Aura Renewing Israel, Israel's largest urban renewal company, was chosen to rebuild the building, this time as a beautifully designed, safer building," and "Aura took it upon itself to build a new, modern 14-story residential building with 89 apartments in a variety of sizes, 2-5 rooms, mini-penthouses and penthouses, all in luxurious and pampering specifications.  The mix of new apartments is suitable for young people, couples and small families.  The building itself has a spacious residents' club and a kindergarten.  The building's surroundings will be developed and upgraded beyond recognition, and the building will rise high above the entire neighborhood with views of green fields."
8. It therefore came out sweet for the plaintiff - from a terrible building collapse to an economic leap. After a few months of apprehension and concern, the plaintiff received, almost ready, that since the apartment owners in the building had no other choice [for a comic illustration of the hardships of the usual way of obtaining the consent of the apartment owners to the required extent - see "The Battle for the National Outline Plan", Eretz Nehederet, Keshet Broadcasting, 2014], an evacuation and construction deal that would pocket a significant share of real estate, the one that the father was willing to wait for many years from the outset.  and a guaranteed monthly rent in the sum of ILS 4,500, until the completion of that transaction.
9. Go out and see - in accordance with the plaintiff's expert opinion prepared on October 27, 2021 [hereinafter: "the plaintiff's expert opinion"], the value of such a new apartment will be approximately ILS 2,000,000, more than ILS 400,000 of the price paid by the plaintiff. That is, a profit of more than 25%.  All this without pinpointing the increase in real estate value since then.
10. It seems that in our generation, in which the theory of real estate is dear to Israel and all the glory of man is derived from it, and "even the water pumpers at the well" are discussing the issues of the two who hold the TAMA [on the weight of the opening of "Two Torah Scholars Who Were in Our City", by S.Y. Agnon, Schocken Publishing, 1960], there is no need for appraisal certification in order to determine the plaintiff's good reward from the transaction.
11. And how did the plaintiff repay immediately after she tasted this honey forest?
12. About two weeks after signing the agreement with Aura, the plaintiff filed this lawsuit in which she petitioned for the following alternative remedies from the defendants:
13. The compensation agreed upon in accordance with section 11d. to the sale agreement in the sum of ILS 158,000, estimated at the date of filing the claim.
14. Alternatively , the compensation agreed upon in accordance with section 11e. to the sale agreement in the sum of ILS 500 for each day of delay in delivering the apartment.

• In exchange - monthly rent in the sum of ILS 4,300 in accordance with the plaintiff's expert opinion, which amounts to ILS 25,800 until the filing of the claim, and in addition, declaratory relief that the defendants are obligated to pay the plaintiff the said rent for each month following the filing of the claim and until "the date of actual delivery of the apartment".

13. All this, perhaps, on the grounds that the defendants breached the sale agreement because on the date set for the delivery of possession of the apartment, which is stated in paragraph 1 of this judgment, they did not actually give possession to her, as aforesaid , due to the collapse of part of the building and the prohibition on entering it.
14. It is not permissible to note in this regard that in the statement of claim the plaintiff refrained from mentioning in a word or half a word the agreement she signed with Aura and the considerations to which she is entitled thereunder, including the receipt of monthly rent in an amount that exceeds the estimate of the rent in the plaintiff's expert opinion, and instead complained that "as long as she did not receive and still does not receive possession of the apartment in the manner set out in the sale agreement, she was prevented from the possibility of acting in the apartment in the manner of a full owner, including renting out the apartment and making the most of the income from it."
15. If that were not enough, in the statement of defense for the counterclaim filed by the plaintiff on November 30, 2022, she claimed, without any reservation, that the agreement with Aura was signed only on August 1, 2022, "after the filing of the statement of claim" [see paragraphs 26.3 and 28.2 of the reply], while in the father's affidavit, which was submitted after the plaintiff was forced to disclose the agreement she had signed with Aura, he admitted that "on May 8, 2022, the plaintiff signed (in my presence) an evacuation-reconstruction agreement with the Aura company."
16. Worse still, in the affidavit of the father's main witness, the plaintiff even admitted that "as of July 2022, the plaintiff had already received and continues to receive a sum of ILS 4,500 per month from Aura in her bank account" [see paragraph 24 of this affidavit], but in the counter-statement of defense submitted by the plaintiff at the end of November 2022, this fact was concealed from the court [see paragraphs 26.4 and 28.3 of the statement of defense].
17. The business mindset behind the lawsuit can already be learned from the father's inconsistent answers to the court's questions during the first hearing of the case, as quoted below:

"Q.     I'm trying to understand, in the end this agreement with Aura of Pinui-Binui will bring     Are you in a situation where you get a new apartment?

1. That's right.
2. And because of the collapse of the building, did your financial situation improve?
3. I don't agree. The purchase of the apartment, the purpose of which was evacuation and reconstruction, it is also written in the evening   The collapse, it is written in my correspondence with a realtor I was looking for.  So the goal was to search         An apartment of Pinui-Binui within some range.
4. And you got it in the short term.
5. This is in retrospect.
6. So you didn't make a profit in the end?
7. I didn't earn compared to what I planned to do on the eve of the deal, that was the goal, on the contrary, In fact, there was a time when there was an alleged asset that I owned and I couldn't get out of it             No income, what I would have received in the alternative."

[See p.  2 of the pre-trial transcript, lines 1-13].

18. The procedural mood according to which the prosecution was conducted can also be learned from the father's blunt answers during his interrogation during the evidentiary hearing on these occasions:

"Adv. Horowitz:                   Why didn't you say it anywhere, because I read in the statement of claim, in no                         Place not in your affidavit as well, nowhere is it recorded signed                                      An agreement with Aura Why?