"In a nutshell, it should be clarified that we are dealing with the Applicant, who is married and has a family, who purchased an apartment, which is registered in her name only. The respondent is the applicant's father, who at a certain stage gave the applicant money as a gift. Some of these funds were used by the Applicant to purchase the apartment - but this is not an apartment that was given as a gift, but at most money."
(page 33 of the plaintiff's exhibits file).
And later on in section 35:
"Also the transfer of the apartment to the respondent (the plaintiff's father, A.A.), in exchange for the money that the respondent gave her as a gift..."
(page 35 of the plaintiff's exhibits file).
- Appendices E to 10 to the plaintiff's exhibits file summarize the arbitration proceedings. An examination of them shows that the applicant's state of mind was that the plaintiff's father had transferred her gift money that was used to purchase the apartment. For the plaintiff and the plaintiff only. The defendant did not claim that he had a slight problem in the apartment, or that her father had decided to give a gift to both parties. The defendant emphasized in his affidavits that this was a gift only to the plaintiff and that the apartment "belonged to her".
- It is not possible to turn a blind eye to the defendant's arguments and affidavits that were submitted in the framework of the arbitration proceedings. The arguments he made there greatly weaken his claim that the plaintiff's father transferred the money to both parties as a gift. When the defendant was asked why he repeatedly stated in the arbitration proceedings that the apartment belonged to the plaintiff only by virtue of gift money transferred to her alone, the defendant replied that he had done so in light of the advice of his attorney at the time, Adv. Assaf Hurst (see pages 24 and 25 of the minutes of the hearing of February 5, 2026). I cannot accept this incomprehensible reasoning as a justification for concealing information on a material matter. In general, I got the impression that the defendant is an opinionated person who is able to make decisions on his own, and even if he receives advice from a third party, he will examine it as it should be. Either way, there is no justification whatsoever in the aforementioned reasoning for declaring a half-truth (at least) before a judicial court.
- If the truth were a guiding light for the defendant, he would have been expected to argue in the framework of the arbitration proceedings (in which the defendant fought over the exclusion of the plaintiff's father from the right to the apartment), that the apartment was purchased as a gift to both parties together and that the money that the father transferred to the seller of the apartment was used by both parties for the purpose of purchasing it.
- According to the Hayoun ruling (Civil Appeal 765/18 Hayoun v. Hayoun, [Nevo] (May 1, 2019)) and the Peretz ruling (Civil Appeal 6460/21 Peretz v. Cohen, [Nevo] (June 18, 2023), a litigant who lied in his testimony, or concealed material information from the court in a previous proceeding, or who testified half-truthfully, his legal status is identical to that of someone who gave false testimony, and the court must completely ignore his testimony and reject his explanations. In Civil Case (Tel Aviv District) 17550-05-24 Shmuel Mishok v. Adv. Israel Andaan, [Nevo] (July 15, 2024), it was ruled and agreed upon with regard to the aforementioned rulings:
"In the continuation of his judgment in the Peretz case, which was given by the panel and by consent, Justice Stein detailed a number of evidentiary rules (paragraph 47) and added that the concept underlying the Hayoun case is that in cases "... At the center of them is a litigant whose mouths and hearts are not equal and who knowingly conceals important facts or documents from the court. ... The shortcut outlined in the Hayun Rule for trial courts is far preferable to walking in fields of lies and walking on the winding paths of half-truths. To be precise: this is not a matter of promoting efficiency in the allocation of judicial resources, and nothing more than a welcome thing in itself. The Hayun rule is firmly rooted in morality and basic justice, for it is unjust, it is improper, and it is immoral to allow a litigant to be built from his lies, concealments, and half-truths; In any case, it is unjust and correct to allow such a party to exhaust judicial resources at the expense of other litigants who are awaiting a judgment or their day in court" (ibid., at para. 49).
- The defendant tried to claim that the plaintiff's father requested, and even claimed in the arbitration proceedings, that he transferred the sums that were used as a gift to both spouses. I did not find support for this in the defendant's exhibits file. Second, in his testimony that was heard before me, the plaintiff's father denied any desire or intention on his part to give the defendant anything (see, for example, his testimony on page 62, lines 1-10). Even if Mr. N.A.'s testimony was not complete, the defendant had the option of completing it, but he objected to it. Moreover, it is precisely in the defendant's exhibits file that there is a document in which it is also necessary to testify to the defendant's state of mind regarding the right of ownership of the apartment. Appendix No. 25 is a document written by the defendant and addressed to the Monetary Court, apparently as a summary of the arbitration award rendered there. It is interesting and important to note that the defendant who recounts the story of the apartment recalls that his role in the purchase of the apartment was limited to his activity as a realtor, and he even complained that he did not receive fees from the plaintiff's father for his work. If indeed the defendant believed at the time in 2016 that he had rights to the apartment by virtue of a gift he received from the plaintiff's father, one wonders why this was not written. Instead, the defendant claimed that "when I, as a realtor, found the apartment for Mr. N.A. and did not receive my salary for a brokerage commission..."If indeed the apartment was received as a gift for both parties, it would appear that it was not the defendant who had to pay a brokerage fee for himself.
At the very least, this evidence presented by the defendant constitutes, in my opinion, another expression of the half-truths presented by the defendant in the arbitration proceedings, and which in the aforementioned entirety contradicts his position here.