The Marker, Adi Cohen, 31.05.2021
The state is gearing up for the war against developers who delay registering apartments in the land registers (taboo). It is working to tighten fines for delaying registration, and limiting the ability of those contractors to participate in tenders for state lands. This emerges from a report published yesterday (Sunday) by an inter-ministerial team headed by the Deputy Attorney General (Civil), Erez Kaminitz. The purpose of the report is to accelerate and simplify the procedures for registering rights in land and real estate.
Currently, there are hundreds of apartments in Israel whose registration in the Tabu has never been regulated. The main reason for this is that the bureaucratic procedures involved in registering apartments are extremely complicated. The registration system is still based on remnants of legislation from the days of the British Mandate and even the Ottoman rule, and there is a lack of coordination between the registration and planning institutions. In light of this, one can understand the dragging of the feet on the part of the contractors.
Deputy Attorney General, Adv. Erez Kaminitz Photo: Olivia Fitoussi
On the other hand, if the apartment is not registered, it has many economic and legal implications. When an apartment is not registered, it is difficult to sell it, inherit it, take out a mortgage and use it to promote urban renewal. In addition, property owners who do not register their apartment in the registry expose themselves to real estate scams and the value of their apartment may decrease.
Last October, Shlomi Heisler, head of the Real Estate Registration Authority at the Ministry of Justice, addressed all of this in an interview with TheMarker , in which he claimed that these barriers "reduce the appraisal market value of these apartments by 10%." The economic and legal problems that arise from the non-registration of the apartments in the taboo are the basis for the report that has now been formulated, and will be laid on the next government table.
Shlomi Heisler, Head of the Real Estate Registration Authority at the Ministry of Justice Photo: Emil Salman
According to the report's recommendations, an amendment to the Sale of Dwellings Act will be proposed, subject to which regular dates will be set during the planning process of construction projects, in which developers will be required to complete the registration of rights. Failure to meet deadlines will result in disciplinary sanctions alongside fines.
In addition, the plan is that in projects promoted on state land, the schedule for registering the rights will be defined already in the contract contracts between the Ministry of Housing, the Israel Land Authority and the contracting companies. In this way, non-compliance with the schedules will in itself be considered a breach of contract, and the developers will be liable for pre-agreed compensation.
Another sanction that will be promoted through the report is to limit the ability of contracting companies marked by the state as registration refusers to compete in its centers. Already today the participation of such companies in tenders is conditional on a deposit of NIS 100,000. In order to increase the effectiveness of the alert, but the intended amount has not yet been specified.
In addition to the sanctions that will be imposed on real estate developers , the published report also includes a series of recommendations for shortening and streamlining cumbersome registration procedures. For example, the report recommended that some of the registration procedures be incorporated into the planning process of projects as a condition for initiating them and obtaining a building permit. For a document documenting the boundaries of the project, and examining changes in the rights situation of the landowners. One of the recommendations in the report seeks to improve the coordination between the planning institutions and the land registration institution and its work.