The Will of March 20, 2016 - The Late Will
- The alleged will dated March 20, 2016 (hereinafter - the "Late Will") is one page long, handwritten in Arabic (the translation of the late will was attached to the affidavit of the daughters, marked P/2). The will is prepared as a declaration by the esteemed anonymous discourse who brings the deceased's words to him. Ostensibly, the deceased bequeathed her apartment in equal parts to the girls, while the yard of the house or apartment was bequeathed to a son. In the language of the translation of the will: "The aforementioned bequeathed the apartment in which she lives which is an inheritance from her deceased husband [...] Her four daughters [...] In equal parts, without selling or buying anyone else, and the aforementioned apartment contains a room, a kitchen and a toilet with an extension in front of it. Whereas the plot of land belonging to the same apartment is a white mitzvah [...] Only."
- The will bears the signature of the deceased and the signature of the anonymous dissident - but there is no dispute that the witness did not sign the will.
The son's arguments against the late will
- In his objection, the son argued that the late will was not drawn up by the deceased and that the signature on it was not her signature. Alternatively, and insofar as it is the will of the deceased, it was signed under pressure and coercion, the result of unfair influence and exploitation of her health and mental state and weakness. In his summary, the son added that the deceased was dependent on the daughters and that this arises, among other things, from the social worker's interrogation that handled the deceased's affairs. In his summary, the son raised another thesis, according to which Applicant No. 1 (hereinafter - the "Applicant") or anyone on her behalf, drove the deceased to the Sheikh's House for the purpose of drafting the will, and thus constitutes involvement in the making of the will that leads to its annulment. According to him, the deceased was no longer literate and did not understand the contents of the will she signed. The girls quarreled between the deceased and the son and his wife, and "brainwashed" the deceased. According to him, the claim that he and his wife abused the deceased is a lie and a lie.
- It was further argued that the deceased had no rights to the house and therefore she did not have the power to bequeath it, not even part of it. The deceased was granted the right of section only in the will of the deceased's late father, the deceased's late husband (hereinafter - the "deceased father"). In addition, the late will does not meet the requirements of section 20 of the Inheritance Law in a way that it is not a will in witnesses, and two witnesses do not sign it, but only the honorable sheikh who makes the will. The will is also not a will before an authority in accordance with the provisions of section 22 of the Law, nor is it a will of a deceased person, since the deceased passed away about 4 years after it was drafted. In addition, the deceased's ID number is missing from the will, and there are no identifying details in the will regarding the property that is the subject of the will.
- In his summary, the son added that the fact that the witness to the so-called will did not sign the will as a witness constitutes a formal defect that places the burden on the daughters to prove that the will is valid. The defect inherent in the absence of the witness's signature on the will cannot be corrected, and the will is void because it was not made before me by two witnesses, as required by the Inheritance Law. In addition, the son denies the daughters' claim that the congregation is not a signatory to the will, since the custom in the Druze community is that women are not allowed to sign documents. According to the son, no source was presented for this claim and that there is no prohibition in the Druze community that prevents a woman from signing documents.
Copied from Nevo
- According to the son, the late will contradicts the will of the deceased father - the late father of the parties. The son presented the deceased's will dated September 11, 2003, which received a probate order from the Druze court in Acre on January 8, 2004 (hereinafter - "the deceased's will"). The order was issued with the consent of the deceased's heirs - the son, the daughters and the deceased. In his will, the deceased bequeathed the house in which he lived with the deceased to his son, and to the deceased and the daughters he granted the right to a section only. The girls' consent is also reflected in the signature of each of them on the documents of the Druze court. The son argues that following their consent to the issuance of a probate order for the deceased's will, they are silenced from arguing against the deceased's will in the present proceeding. It therefore follows from the son's position that the deceased could not bequeath the apartment that was not her property and was granted her only a right of section in it.
- The son further adds that the apartment was built by the father of the deceased father - the grandfather of the parties - who gave the deceased father the apartment as a gift even before his marriage to the deceased. In addition, the deceased father and the deceased were married before 1974, i.e., prior to the entry into force of the Property Relations Law, 5733-1973, and in such a way that the deceased never acquired rights in the property, even by virtue of her marriage to the deceased. The son further adds that each of the sons of the deceased father and the deceased merited to receive a house from his parents, and he was entitled through the deceased's will to the entire house - in his parents' apartment and apartment.
- In his affidavit, the son adds that he presented the early will immediately after he learned of its existence, and that he did not know of its existence when he submitted his objection to the late will. The will was given to him by the honorable sheikh of a certain person. According to him, at the time of drafting the preliminary will in which the respondent gave her apartment to her son, she knew about the will of his father, her late husband, and therefore she gave him the apartment of the deceased. The deceased even agreed to the deceased's will before the Druze court as aforesaid, as part of the process of granting a probate order. She drafted her preliminary will in order to "emphasize the things that came in the will of my deceased father and so that there would be no disputes between the brothers and sisters after her death, so that she repeated what was stated in the deceased's will, which illustrates her knowledge that she has no rights in the house" (paragraph 13 of the affidavit).
- The son adds in his affidavit that the earlier will that he wishes to execute is more detailed than the later will. She describes in detail the residence in which the deceased lived and its boundaries, describes the yard and the son's apartment, his garden and the entrance to his house from the main street. Thus, according to the son, she singled out the apartment in which she lives and her purchase for her son, without stating that she owns rights in the apartment. In addition, in the early will, all of the deceased's sons are mentioned and the fact that each of them was entitled to a house. In addition, in her early will, she bequeathed ILS 2,000 to charity for houses of worship.
- In his affidavit, the son repeats the reasons for the objection, that the deceased did not sign the will with a clear mind, but rather under pressure, coercion and unfair influence, and that the deceased could not read and write, did not understand what she signed and was under pressure from the sisters. The son adds that the time difference between the two wills, about three weeks, raises suspicion regarding the circumstances of the drafting of the late will, and the son finds it puzzling that within a short period of time the deceased changed her will substantially and without any event preceding it. The son further maintains that if the deceased had indeed requested to change her will, she would have turned to the honorable sheikh who drafted it, and would have even made do with amending the will and not making a new will. In addition, there is no truth in the sentence brought by the deceased in the later will, that she bequeathed the house she inherited from the deceased father, while it is clear that the deceased father did not bequeath her the apartment or the house, but only granted her and the right to build a residence.
- In his summary, the son denies the daughters' claim that the deceased changed her early will to the detriment of the son, since the latter led to her financial entanglement and her entry into insolvency proceedings. According to him, this argument was contradicted by the testimony of the lawyer who represented the deceased in the insolvency proceedings, according to which the deceased's financial entanglement preceded the drafting of the first will, and was not the motive for drafting the later will.
- According to the son in his affidavit, he does indeed wish to execute a will that preceded the late will by only three weeks, and on the other hand, he claimed that the deceased was not fit to make the late will, but according to him, there is no contradiction in this. He still maintains the argument that the deceased had no rights in the house and did not have the power to bequeath them, but without prejudice to this, it is "correct to demand" the execution of the prior will, since it relates to "all the issues", all the more so where the sisters seek to execute a will that is "alleged and forged" and contradictory, in relation to the house in which they have no rights.
- The son denies the claim that the house was sold from his grandfather to the deceased father, and denies the alleged sale agreement presented by the sisters. According to him, "The document is fake, it did not exist and was not created." Even the translation presented by the sisters is not correct. According to him, his grandfather transferred the house to the deceased father as a gift, even though the rights to the property are still registered in the grandfather's name. In addition, the agreement is not clear, the property is not clearly stated in it, the agreement was not reported to the tax authorities, and it is not the same property at all, since his grandfather lived in a different house and in a different neighborhood. To the extent that he was actually in the agreement, his fulfillment would have come to him from his deceased father or mother. He further said that the agreement was drawn up in the form of a declaration and was not a sale agreement that meets the requirements of the law. The parties to the contract are not even signatories to it.
- In his affidavit, the son also denies the claim that he and his wife abused the deceased, and these claims are intended to discredit his name and deprive him of his rights. About three years after the wills were made, his mother's health deteriorated, he took care of her with the consent of his brother and was even appointed as the guardian of the deceased in order to consent to perform an operation. The son further denies that he used his mother's checkbook for his business and that he got his mother into insolvency.
The Sisters' Claims - Against the Early Will
- According to the sisters, even if the early will was lawfully drafted, it was in any case legally revoked by the late will and by virtue of section 36(b) of the Inheritance Law. According to them, the late will completely contradicts the earlier will and it grants the deceased's apartment to the sisters.
- According to them, the deceased father bequeathed in his will only his share of the residential apartment to his son, since the second part of the property is given to the deceased by virtue of her being his wife and in light of the partnership rule. In her later will, the deceased granted her share, i.e., half of the rights in the house, to the sisters, while Lavan gave the land in the yard.
- According to the sisters, the deceased and the deceased father had eight children, and all of them lived in their home until they married, with the exception of the respondent, who continued to live with them. After marrying his wife, he erected a wall inside the parents' home and divided it into two apartments - one for the son and his wife, and the other for the deceased - a one-room apartment, a kitchen, a bathroom and a toilet.
- The sisters add that the background to the late drafting of the will is the bad attitude of the son and his wife towards the deceased. In this context, a secretariat states that the son opened a garage in the yard of the deceased's home, used the deceased's checks for the purpose of his business, and brought the deceased to insolvency and declare her bankrupt. For this reason, the trustee in the bankruptcy case takes part in the present proceeding. The question of whether the deceased had rights in the house will be decided in the bankruptcy case after this court decides on the identity of the deceased's heirs.
- According to the sisters, they did not know of the existence of the late will until after the deceased passed away. They received it from the testimony [...] (hereinafter - "the testimony to the will"). Contrary to the son's claims, the will is a will in witnesses to which the respected discourse that conducted it and the witness to the will were witnessed. The reason for the fact that the community is not a signatory to the will is the custom in the Druze community, according to which women do not sign documents, all the more so in the face of the respectable discourse in the Druze community. The sisters' objection was accompanied by an affidavit on behalf of the witness to the will as well as on behalf of the anonymous honorable sheikh, and both testify that they were witnesses to the signing of the will. Thus, according to the daughters' approach, the basic elements of a will are fulfilled in the witnesses.
- The daughters recall that after they submitted an application to the Registrar of Inheritances for a probate order for the late will, the son filed an objection on his behalf, which he based on three arguments: first, that the deceased had no rights in the house at all, since the deceased father had full rights in the house. Therefore, the deceased did not have the power to bequeath what was not her property; Second, the will is defective where it is not signed by two witnesses; and the third is that the deceased's signature on the will was forged, or she signed under unfair influence, or she was not aware of the nature of the will.
- In other words, according to the daughters, the son never claimed that he was holding in his hands an earlier will of the deceased bequeathing the deceased's apartment. It was only after a precedent was made before the previous panel, during which it became clear that the son's reasons for objection were not prima facie convincing, that he then presented the preliminary will in a puzzling manner. When he did so, he raised contradictory claims. Now, according to the son, the deceased was qualified to make a will, even though the two wills are separated by only about three weeks, and the deceased even had rights in the apartment in order to bequeath it, this time to the respondent.
- In the affidavit, the Applicant added that the person who built the house was indeed the grandfather of the parties, but that he did not give it as a gift to the deceased father as claimed by the son, who did not present a clue to the claim. In fact, the deceased father and the deceased, along with their eight children, lived in the grandfather's home with him and his wife, until the latter's death. At that time, the deceased grandfather asked to remarry and it was not appropriate for him to live with his new wife alongside his son and daughter-in-law (the deceased father and the deceased). Therefore, he wished to sell the house and buy another one for himself and his wife, and it was only natural that the deceased father, who lived with him, would purchase the house from him, and therefore a "sale agreement" was signed between the parties on March 20, 1987, according to which the grandfather sold the house to the deceased father in return. The sale was made after the deceased's father married the deceased, they lived in it all these years and even renovated and improved it with joint funds, meaning that the purchase was actually made even by the deceased, even though her name is not mentioned in the "sale agreement". This share of the deceased in the house was entitled to be bequeathed to whomever she wished, and she chose in her later will to bequeath it to the sisters.
- The Applicant further refers in the affidavit to the preliminary interrogation of the Honorable Sheikh, who testified that the witness to the will also served as a witness to her, she was a witness to the deceased's statements regarding her will and the deceased signed the will even in her presence. The witness did not sign the will as a witness because of the custom in the Druze community as aforesaid.
Discussion and Decision