Opinion on behalf of the plaintiffs:
- On February 20, 2020, the engineer Michael Kravchik visited the plaintiffs' apartment and found, according to his opinion, a construction defect of the contractor who built the building in 1975. The opinion is attached to the statement of claim and is marked asAppendix I.
- The engineer found that the site had undergone renovation and restoration, and based on attached documents, it emerged that the thickness of the existing ceiling before the work was 5 cm, with the Israeli standard setting a minimum thickness of 16 cm. In addition, he expresses surprise that a 5 cm thick ceiling lasted 45 years.
- The engineer found that the plaintiffs' expenses for the purpose of carrying out the work, which are backed by receipts, amounted to NIS 98,022.
- Expenses that were not backed by receipts but backed by relevant documents amounted to NIS 1,505.7.
- The couple's rent for 6 months of rent during the work, NIS 19,800.
- Expenses that are not backed by evidence amount to NIS 130,450.
- In order to host an offset of some of the work that the professionals planned to perform, the costs of rehabilitation according to the engineer, which include alternative housing, are NIS 248,272.
Opinion on behalf of defendants 1-2:
- On September 5, 2021, the engineer, Eli Benwalid, visited the plaintiffs' apartment. The apartment is located in a condominium building on the ground floor above the foundation floor and above the lower path. The difference in levels between the entrance to the apartment and the lower eastern path indicates a topography that creates a space under the floor of the apartment. Adjacent to the apartment, an additional storage room with an internal height of less than 2.2 meters was built, suitable for the storage room. The storage ceiling is a balcony to the living room. In addition, a high fence was built along the lower trail, creating a private courtyard at the level of the trail.
The photos of the yard are attached to the opinion submitted on October 19, 2021, and are marked with numbers 1 and 2.
- In the eastern foundation wall, an opening was made to the door from which one could enter the existing space under the apartment. The work to create the space included an excavation, a new concrete ceiling for the space that constitutes the current living room and kitchen floor, and perimeter walls. The space has electrical points in the ceiling and is ready to receive finishing work.
- According to the original static calculations of the building made in 1975, the floor of the building was planned as a suspended floor, with a rib ceiling with a total thickness of 19 cm, with the upper concrete slab being 5 cm thick and below it hollow concrete blocks 14 cm high are arranged between the concrete blocks with a width of 10 cm.
- In the engineer's opinion, it is unlikely that there was a concrete floor 5 cm thick as claimed by the plaintiffs, since such a floor is not standard. Such a floor would not have functioned for about 40 years and would have collapsed immediately in light of the existing load on it.
- The engineer further explains that the floor of a building is performed uniformly in the building, and not in parts, meaning that according to the plaintiffs, the entire building is supposed to have a floor 5 centimeters thick, and therefore the question arises as to why the failure did not occur in the entire building. The engineer explains that the contractor may have caused damage to the floor that caused an engineer from the Department of Hazardous Buildings to see only the upper plate.
The Evidentiary Hearing:
- On March 10, 2025, an evidentiary hearing was held before me. At the hearing, plaintiff No. 2, Mr. Michael Kravchik, an engineer on behalf of the plaintiffs, Mr. Lev Nisman, Mr. Eli Benwalid and Mr. Elhanan Arkin, engineers on behalf of the defendants, testified. It should be noted that plaintiff 1 did not testify that he fell ill and his affidavit was removed from the file as stated above.
- Hatuel, plaintiff No. 2, reiterated in her testimony that the couple purchased the apartment from Relpo, defendant 3, in 1982 and decided to renovate it in 2014. As part of the renovation work, we planned to move the kitchen and replace the flooring (pp. 7-8 of the transcript). She later explained that during the work and following the discovery of the subsidence of the floor, an engineer on behalf of the municipality, Mr. PaulJacob, came to the apartment and claimed that they could not use the living room for safety reasons. Therefore, a partition was built inside their home separating the living room from the couple's bedroom and kitchen. At a certain point during the renovation work, when the couple realized the damages they had suffered, they contacted defendant 1 detailing the sequence of events, but were met with rejection and lack of interest on her part. In an attempt to contact defendant 3, they realized that the company had been closed and there was no one to turn to on the matter. As for the actions that the municipal engineer demanded the couple to perform, the witness noted the treatment of the column in the basement, the lining of the basement walls, and protection against earthquakes (page 10 of the transcript). She also noted that the municipality's engineer demanded that they remove and strengthen the entire floor area in their apartment, which is located above the space (p. 11, lines 6-19 of the transcript):
Q: And the floor you made is actually in the living room, right? The basement from below.