Attorney Meir Mizrahi, globes.co.il

In circumstances where land is owned by the Moshe ( Land Partnership), many times the Land Partners find it appropriate to reach a sharing agreement. Sometimes the sharing agreement only refers to how the land will be managed by the various partners, and in some cases the sharing agreement may also include provisions regarding the allocation of certain parts of the land to specific owners.

Not every case includes a transaction sharing agreement under which real estate rights are transferred between various parties. In light of various questions that arose in the circumstances of the signing of a sharing agreement in the context of the need to report it to the tax authority for the purpose of obtaining tax approvals for registration of the agreement at the Land Registry, the tax authority recently issued a new procedure clarifying in which cases it is not necessary to submit tax approvals for the registration of the sharing agreement.

The procedure encompasses three cases where there is no need to submit to the Land Registry any tax approvals, provided that a lawyer's affidavit is attached to the application, according to the form attached to the procedure. And these are the cases:

1. A non-remunerative sharing agreement, comprising up to four dwelling units of up to one and a half acres, where there is a reconciliation between the parts of the land register and the script and agreement.

2. Sharing agreement signed in the framework of transactions of acquisition groups, either at the same time or before the acquisition of the rights in the land by the members of the group.

3. A sharing agreement that does not include the acquisition of unique holdings or the attachment of building rights, such as in the case of an agreement that stipulates management instructions for the land.

The procedure stipulates that in these cases, the absence of debts and improvement levies from the local authority will also not be required.

In accordance with the procedure, in any case where the sharing agreement does not meet one of the above alternatives, it is necessary to report it to the tax authority and obtain tax approvals for the purpose of registering an agreement with the Land Registry, except with the approval of the property tax, which is not required in any case.

The procedure provides for some relief that the need for the tax authority to sign the sharing agreement itself and the accompanying notes may be relied upon if a lawyer's affidavit is attached, stating that the agreement filed for registration is the same as the one reported to the tax authorities and compliant with the reports issued following that affidavit. Also, in these cases, to the extent that tax approvals have a "sales value" of 0 or 1, no lack of debts and improvement levies from the local authority will also be required. In any other case, these certificates will be legally required.