Some of the more notable cases the firm has worked are :

​

​

Shimon Hatzadik

​

The Shimon Hatzadik site is located in Jerusalem, on the road leading from the city center to the Hadasah Hospital and the Hebrew University. This site was an enclave inside the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which between 1948 and 1967 was under Jordanian rule.

In the 1950s, the Jordanian custodian of enemy property has settled the Arab inhabitants of the old city in the site.

After the 6 days war, the Israeli Administrator General liberated

the site and returned it to it's Jewish owners, the Sparadic  committee and Knesset.

At this point, many questions had to be answered by the court:

1. What is the relation between the Arab inhabitants and the property?

2. Who holds the rights to the property?

The supreme court has stated through the years that the Arab inhabitants will receive the status of protected tenants of the Jewish families. At that point, and because of varying political reasons, the Arab inhabitants have refused to pay rent to the Jewish owners. Furthermore, claims of counter registration arose, which state the Arab inhabitants were the owners of the property before the Jewish families.

The trial was accompanied by political claims over the asymmetry in liberating land previously owned by Jordan to Jewish owners, while there were different agreements for families who stayed in Jordan, and their property stayed in the west Jerusalem.

To prove the location of the properties, many different types of evidence were shown, including hundreds of certificates, aerial photographs, and different statements.

At the end of the trial, the court has stated in a very publicized announcement that the rightful ownership of the land belongs to the Sparadic committee and the Knesset, and the Arab inhabitants must be evacuated for not paying rent, among other reasons.

​

Haile Selassie

​

The Ethiopian emperors have seen themselves as the decedents of King Solomon and Queen of Sheba. The last Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie saw himself as the 225th generation to King Solomon.

As such, the Ethiopian emperor, like others before him, purchased a big building at the center of Jerusalem, while he was heir to the throne. During the second world war, Haile Selassie has visited Jerusalem, and the firm's founder even met with him while working at the law firm of David Goytan. 

In 1947 a revolution has occurred in Ethiopia, and the property of the emperor has been nationalized, and his family imprisoned. Many years later, his family has been released from jail, and requested back their properties. In order to retrieve the properties, the firm had to prove the death of Haile Selassie, as well as the death of his many children and grandchildren, who spread all over the world.

After a long trial against the government of Ethiopia, who claimed a right to the assets according to laws of nationalization, according to the claim that the assets held by the emperor are owned by the government, and according to the claim that the government is a legal heir to the assets of the emperor.

In a public trial, the family of Haile Selassie has won it's rights to his properties.

​

Correction of false registration

​

Many plots of land were purchased in Israel until the 70s.
The form of identification for these transactions was a document produced, by the land registration authority, for the purchasers of the land on the day of the sale, which was referred to by the people as a “Kushan”, derived from Turkish.
In cases where the original purchasers of a land have lost the Kushan, the land registration authority requires many forms of proof for ownership of the land.

In this case, a land investigator approached an heir of a man who had a similar name to the man who originally purchased the land, convinced her that her father is the owner of the land, and even managed to convince the land registration authority of the ownership.

When the heirs of the man who originally purchased the land tried to sell their land, they found out about this wrong claim and filed a suit to fix the incorrect registration. The heir who claimed the land which wasn’t hers conducted a long battle to fight the retrieval of the land.
After a long litigation battle which was handled by Adv. Zvi E. Shamir and Adv. Oria Elharar, which included dozens of requests from witnesses worldwide, the court finally decided the registration should be fixed.

This case has joined many others which the firm handled after a wrongful registration in the land registration authority. This case is unique, however, because usually the people who make these wrongful claims do not fight when they find out they are not the correct heirs of the land. In this case, the wrongful claimant decided to fight against the just heirs and lost.
 

​

​

Tax returns for Palestinian workers

​

According to a ruling made by the Israeli government, all inhabitants of Judea and Samaria, as well as the Gaza strip, who are employed in Israel, receive their wage through the government employment agency. This agency also calculates their taxes for them.

As is publicly known, the taxation calculation in Israel is calculated on a yearly basis, and one of the requirements of the employer which calculated the pay strips is to sum the yearly wage of the worker and calculate a final tax according to the yearly wage of the worker. Between the years of 1970 and 2000, the employment agency has made incorrect calculations of taxation, and caused residents of Judea and Samaria which were employed in Israel to pay more taxes than required. It is estimated that during those years approximately 100,000 worked in Israel per year, and each of them has paid on average approximately 1,000 NIS over the required amount in taxes. The people working in Judea and Samaria were not aware of this mistake, and did not ask for the money to be refunded, lacking the means to do so.

Our firm has found out about this subject randomly when a worker has asked the firm to handle a job claim. He has brought many pay slips with him, which enabled an accountant the firm works with to spot the mistake in taxation.

After a class action law suit was won by the firm, 12,000 of the firm's customers received tax returns from the government.

​

Locating and proving ownership according to Turkish land deeds

 

During the time of the Turkish empire, the land deeds were declared according to cardinal directions, and without the use of any maps. An example for a Turkish land deed as such can be seen to the right of this text.

Proving land registration, as such, is impossible without looking into the names of the people who have inhabited the neighborhood since the 19th century.

For example, in the Turkish deed seen to the right, to the east of the house appears a print house. In order to prove that at that location a print house once existed, the firm had to research extensively the owners of the land. The firm has found that the land once belonged to two of the founders of the neighborhood, Zonenfeld and Levi.

In an extensive research of print houses, the firm found that during the years 1889-1894, a print house was founded on that land. Additional research in the Sharia specialized court found that the seller of the land inherited the land from her father around 1897, and another certificate which proves that her father bought the land from Moshe Leib. Thanks to the firm's research, it could be proved that the land has bordered on the land of Moshe Leib, proving it was the land on the deed and the ownership of the land.

​​

Locating lost property

 

Our firm works with many researchers in order to locate land of heirs who do not know the location of the land they have inherited or cannot prove their ownership of the property. For example, our firm works in hundreds of cases of people who have purchased land from the American Zionist commonwealth, which was a company that purchased large tracks of land in Afula, Herzelia, Jerusalem, and Ramat Yishai. 

​

Afula

​

Our office is dealing with many dozens of plots which were purchased

by American families in the 1920s.

 

In the 1920s following the Zionist's Congress' decision, huge tracts of

land were purchased from affluent Lebanese families in the center of

the valley of Israel, to establish the first operatic city.

​

The city was not constructed in a lavish fashion as planned following the

collapse of the company. However following a new Zoning Plan from 2005,

the city began developing, and we are representing many owners who are

issuing succession orders and are proving their titles in Afula.​​

​​

Grace Group – Zoning taxes

​

This ruling addresses the issue of calculating the improvement levy. It examines whether, in calculating the improvement levy, only the addition of the building rights percentage should be considered, or whether balance payments paid should also be added or deducted.

The improvement levy is a charge that the seller pays to a local committee for half of the increase in the value of their parcel as a result of the approval of an outline plan. An outline plan can change the building percentages of a parcel and may also determine an unequal distribution of these percentages. In such cases, the owner of part of a new parcel/s might receive a relatively high return for their share of the land and, in return, will pay balancing payments to the owner of another parcel/s.

In the matter at hand, the municipality of Kiryat Ata claimed that the payment of balancing fees should not be deducted from the new value of a property. The court ruled that the balance payments in the plan for consolidation and division are part of the framework of the plan itself and must be taken into account in the calculation of the improvement, whether for the debit (of the recipient) or for the reduction (of the payer). Therefore, there is justification to reduce the balance payments from the improvement resulting from the plan of consolidation and division.

The rationale for the court's ruling is quoted from the plaintiff’s summary (section 37 a-d):

"I believe that the logic can be understood in the example that the plaintiff brought in its summaries, as follows: Reuven and Levi have a right to land, on which they have the right to build one apartment. An outline plan states that Reuven will receive the right to build the apartment and Levi will receive balance payments worth half of the apartment.

If we subtract the balance payments from the improvement, Reuven will receive an apartment from which he will pay half of the apartment as balance payments, a quarter of the apartment as an improvement levy, and will leave with a profit of a quarter of the apartment. Levi, on the other hand, will receive half-apartment balance payments, will pay a quarter-apartment improvement levy, and will be left with a quarter-apartment profit.

If we don't deduct the balance payments from the improvement, Reuven will get an apartment from which he will pay half of the apartment balance payments and half of the apartment as an improvement levy, and will end up with no profit."

The court rejected the municipality's position and required it to pay more than NIS 3,000,000, linked to the index with interest.​

​​

Past verdict examples in our cases:

​​

Frida Fountain

​

​

Lipa Globinski

​

​

Muhamad Hagog

​​

R.K.

​

​

​​