Calcalist, Dotan Levy,   30.12.20

The Tel Aviv Municipality wanted to charge an apartment owner an improvement levy of hundreds of thousands of shekels, but during the hearing with a decisive appraiser, it turned out that the rights for which they wanted to charge the apartment owner not owned at all, but owned by another apartment owner in the building. .

The dispute regarding the improvement levy was brought before the appraiser Adv. Shlomi Yaffe in his position as a decisive appraiser, when the charge of the local committee in Tel Aviv referred to the sale of an apartment in an area of ​​55 square meters. And a private office on the ground floor.

After the sale of the apartment in May 2020, the municipality asked to charge its owner an improvement levy of NIS 275,000 (according to a NIS 550,000 improvement) - in light of the impact of the Quarter 4 plan and future building rights in the building, including the roof area. Up to 7 floors and a partial roof floor, in addition to strengthening the building.

However, during the arguments of the decisive appraiser, the real estate appraiser on behalf of the landlord - Danny Trashansky from the firm "Kamil Treshansky Rafael" claimed that according to an agreement previously signed the roof area includes his building rights belong to another apartment owner in the building. Of additional construction on the roof in accordance with the plan of the 4th district.

The decisive appraiser, Adv. Yaffa, agreed with the landlord's arguments and stated that "in our case, there is in fact a dispute of principle that is not about the amount of the improvement levy, but about the actual charging of the improvement levy."

He further stated that "the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Local Committee had all the legal documents to reach the conclusion that the full building rights in the upper roof area and the roofs that would be created above it belong to subdivision 1. Not even that, the respondent was given the opportunity to present correspondence documents. Mishnah 1 and she did not take this opportunity. "

In light of this, the decisive appraiser decided that there was no need to discuss the question of the improvement levy in the apartment and canceled the Tel Aviv Municipality's demand. In addition, and in an exceptional manner, the decisive appraiser paid the full financial expenses for conducting the appraiser's inquiry procedure on the municipality.

According to Trashansky, "the easy hand of the Tel Aviv Municipality in imposing improvement levies on apartment owners in the city has led to a precedent in this case, where the rights of one apartment were included in the calculation of the rights of the apartment that is allegedly the improvement. "This precedent-setting dispute could have been avoided if the municipality had shown more responsibility, examined itself and not acted carelessly, while materially damaging the monetary value of the landlord following the sale transaction."