In addition, it is also requested that the lawyer who drafted the documents of the alleged "gift deal" be summoned. Did he explain to the parents that they were disinheriting the defendant's brother from a future inheritance? Was he presented with the presentation of a gift, or was he given other explanations as to the manner in which the transaction was made, etc.?
- Second, in refraining from summoning witnesses to support his version, the defendant left his testimony as the only testimony of a litigant that was not assisted. Section 54 of the Evidence Ordinance [New Version] 5731-1971 states that when a court rules in a civil trial on the basis of a single testimony that has no assistance, and the testimony is not a confession of a litigant, it must specify in its decision what motivated it to suffice with that testimony. In the present case, there is a real difficulty in sufficing with the defendant's sole testimony, which is not supported by all the circumstances.
- Third, a recording of a conversation was shown, in which the defendant's father explicitly says that he sold the apartment to his son "five years ago." This is an explicit confession, and insofar as it was sought to be claimed, as indeed the defendant's counsel argued in his summaries, that these were statements that were not true, the defendant had to prove it, which was not done.
- Fourth, the defendant himself was recorded saying that he had purchased the apartment. His explanation in this matter, according to which the conversation took place with a person he did not know and who had no interest in revealing his personal affairs, is not convincing, since he was not required in such a conversation to say anything about the manner in which the apartment came to his ownership, and yet he chose, as Mashiach in his innocence, to give a version that does not match his version in this case and is actually consistent with the plaintiff's version.
- Fifth, no convincing explanation was given for giving the parents' only apartment to the defendant as a gift, when they themselves live in a rented apartment, and they have 12 children. According to the logic of the argument, according to which there was a desire to keep the matter a secret from the brothers, both the defendant and the parents did not want to share the matter with the brothers, to explain their motives to them and to obtain their consent, or at least to accept the unusual gift. But such a secret will eventually be revealed, and then the consequences can be devastating for the entire family. No evidence of an "earthquake" was claimed or brought in the defendant's family when the "secret" was discovered , and hence it can be assumed that the truth is not as presented by the defendant. In this regard, I will note that the defendant's counsel is one of XXX and he too refrained from testifying about the discovery of the "secret" and its implications.
- Sixth, the explanation that the defendant concealed his ownership of the apartment from the plaintiff is not at all convincing - he could have signed a non-disclosure agreement with her and presented her with his version that it was a gift he received and therefore the apartment was not included in the balanced assets. Since he did not do so, it is presumed that the "secret" is from the plaintiff and not from others, who if they did not know in real time about the transfer of the apartment to the defendant, they would probably have known about it when the proceedings in the case began, a few months after the agreement was signed.
- The conclusion from the aforesaid is that the alleged gift transaction did not reflect reality and should not be relied upon.
- In the end, the defendant did not lift the increased burden imposed on him to convince him that the apartment on XXX Street should be excluded from the properties that must be balanced between the parties. The result, therefore, is that the apartment will be balanced in such a way that the defendant will pay the plaintiff half of its value on the date of the agreement, March 15, 2018, plus linkage and interest differentials until the actual date of payment.
- In conclusion, I will briefly address the plaintiff's claim regarding the fact that the defendant did not pay her the sum of ILS 1, 200, 000 that he undertook in the 2015 agreement. The defendant, as may be recalled, claimed that he had paid the debt in various ways over a number of years and that the 2015 agreement should be seen as an agreement that was fully executed by the parties.
- The plaintiff agrees that, at least, the lion's share of the debt was paid to her by way of purchasing an apartment for her in Jaffa (ILS 700, 000) and paying several months of mortgage in relation to this property. Since in the 2018 agreement there was an agreement that there were no past debts between the parties, even if the defendant did not pay the debt in full, the plaintiff forgives it, and therefore the 2015 agreement should be considered, at the very least, as an agreement in principle to past accounting and the separation of the parties' business, a matter that was officially approved by the approval of the 2018 agreement. In any event, the aforesaid does not affect or change the outcome of the proceeding in this case, which is as detailed above.
The Result
- The plaintiff did not meet the burden imposed on her to prove her claim that the prenuptial agreement of March 15, 2018, which was approved and received the force of a judgment, should be canceled , nor did she prove her claim regarding the rest of the assets, as detailed above. Therefore, her claim to cancel the agreement is rejected. On the other hand, the defendant did not meet the burden of proving that the apartment on XXX Street, Jerusalem should be excluded from the assets for the balance of the parties, and this apartment will be balanced as detailed above.
- In the circumstances of the case, and taking into account the value of all the assets in dispute in respect of which the claim was rejected and of the apartment in which the claim was accepted, the defendant will pay the plaintiff attorney 's fees and expenses in the sum of ILS 40, 000. This amount will be paid within 30 days, otherwise it will bear linkage and interest differentials as required by law from today until the actual payment.
Granted today, August 04, 2026, in the absence of the parties.