In the case of Erenstein, I would like to say that the situation in which the creditor was left without a home of her own, in addition to the illnesses from which she suffered (when her physical condition was better than that of the deceased before), creates psychological and physical dependence on the beneficiaries. Similarly, the deceased was in an uninhabitable apartment, confined to her bed and physically completely dependent on the plaintiff and the late Yaffe. In such a situation, there is no escaping the conclusion that the deceased was completely dependent on them, both physically and mentally.
The date of the deceased's return to England:
- In paragraph 18 of the statement of claim, it is claimed that the deceased returned to England in February 2014 when the gift agreement was duly signed on November 21, 2013. In contrast, the plaintiff testified on page 26 that the deceased returned to England about a year after the gift agreement was drawn:
The deceased's departure from Israel, four months after the signing of the gift agreement, in addition to the plaintiff's testimony that there was a delay in the deceased's departure, in light of the fact that the late Yaffa was in bankruptcy proceedings, and appropriate arrangements had to be made for her (pp. 26, 28-33), strengthens the conclusion that the plaintiff held the deceased's apartment in order for him to receive it "as a gift", and after receiving his request, there was no longer a need to keep it in Israel. His testimony before me that the deceased left a year after the signing of the gift agreement, was intended to remove the suspicion that he held her for the purpose of the gift. For the sake of clarity, I state that the deceased left the country in February 2014, taking into account what was stated in Prof. Greenwald's medical certificate that was attached from January 2014, in which he wrote that the deceased was supposed to leave the country soon. I am under the impression that the plaintiff's conduct over the years, according to which he tried to conceal the drafting of the gift agreement from the defendant, when he did not bother to live in the apartment, even though he did not own a house, or to register the apartment in his name at the Land Registry Office, or at least to register a warning note, and made do with reporting the transaction to the Tax Authority, is conduct in the dark and is intended to prevent the rest of the family members from knowing about the gift transaction. And so that they do not try to thwart it.
- There was no clear reason why the deceased was kept in Israel and did not return to London after the end of the shiva for her son Moshe z"l. This argument is sharpened in light of the plaintiff's testimony, who provided a variety of reasons why the deceased should have returned to London. Thus he testified once that the deceased returned to England because she had asked for it and she did not like to be in Israel (pp. 26, 22-23). In another place, the plaintiff testified that the deceased returned to Israel because the apartment was unfit for habitation (p. 26, s. 28). In another place, the plaintiff testified that the facilitator wanted to return to England because there she had medical insurance and in Israel she was not a member of a health fund (pp. 27, 27-28). Either way, a variety of these reasons should have led to the result of the deceased's return to London a month after the death of her son Moshe z"l. Therefore, the defendant's holding of the deceased in Israel while she was confined to her bed, in precarious living conditions, against her will, and her return to London shortly after she signed the gift agreement, strengthen the conclusion that the agreement was concluded due to the exploitation of the deceased's weakness.