Family Case (Tel Aviv) 15885-01-20 A.A. v. Y.A.

Judgment

I have before me an action to declare that a bank account and the funds accumulated therein belong to the father of the parties and not to defendant 1.  More specifically, whether the addition of defendant 1 as a partner in an existing account was done for reasons of convenience or grant.

Factual and procedural background is required for the matter

1. The late L. and Y.    (hereinafter also - the deceased, respectively) were married and from their marriage three children were born: the plaintiff (hereinafter also - A), defendant 1 (hereinafter also - the defendant or Y), defendant 2 (hereinafter also - K).

The plaintiff and the defendant are citizens and residents of Israel; defendant 2 is an Israeli citizen and a resident of England.

2. The deceased owned large-scale businesses in the fields of tourism (X Ltd.) and finance; as part of these businesses, the parents accumulated assets and became wealthy people. The parents' joint property included, inter alia, real estate assets (two apartments in Tel Aviv, an apartment in Givatayim, two apartments and a shop (hereinafter also - the office) in Ramat Gan), works of art, a number of accounts in various banks (Mercantile, Leumi, Igud), including an account at Union Bank, Branch XX (XX), Account Number XX (hereinafter also - the Union Account or the Account).
3. On May 9,2012, the parents signed a mutual will (hereinafter also - the will) before a notary, stating that upon the death of one of the spouses, their property would be inherited to the surviving spouse in its entirety, and that after the death of the surviving spouse, their property would be divided among the three children in a division as determined in the will.
4. On November 9,2015, the defendant was added as an additional owner of the account.
5. The mother died on -----, while the father lived long after her and died on -----.
6. On January 10,2021, the Inheritance Registrar issued a probate order in the case of the deceased, and on August 9,2021, a probate order was issued in the case of the deceased.
7. In between, on January 7,2020, the father, through the plaintiff, in his capacity as his guardian, filed a claim for a declaratory judgment according to which the father is the sole owner of the funds in the account, while the defendant does not own rights to the funds in this account. The plaintiff also petitioned to determine that the deceased's consent to the defendant's inclusion as the owner of the account is null and void, and to obligate the defendant to return to the account all the sums of money that he withdrew from the account, including credit cards, not in favor of the deceased, to the extent that there are any.
8. After the father's death, and even before his will was executed, I allowed the plaintiff to continue to conduct the proceeding as the deceased's successor, and I also ordered that K. be added as a party to the proceeding-defendant (decision of January 27,2021).  It should be noted that although it turned out that defendant 2's position was, in fact, identical to the plaintiff's, defendant 2 chose not to join the lawsuit as a party.
9. On February 3,2022, I appointed an expert in the field of psychiatry as an expert on behalf of the court, in order to submit an opinion on the question of whether at the time of the defendant's addition to the account, the deceased was fit to sign legal documents in general and documents to join the account in particular. At the end of the day, no expert opinion was submitted.
10. The parties submitted affidavits in place of the main witness: the plaintiff on January 13,2022, the defendant on March 13,2022, and defendant 2 on March 14,2022. On behalf of the plaintiff, the affidavit of the psychiatrist, Dr.  Elik Yoffe (hereinafter also -   Yoffe), who examined the father, was also submitted.
11. Two evidentiary hearings were held. On December 11,2022, interrogations were heard by   Yoffe (pp.  1-6), the plaintiff (pp.  7-56), defendant 2 (pp.  57-99); on January 12,2022, the defendant was interrogated (pp.  90-207).  It should be noted that there were minor proofreading errors in the transcripts that were corrected on April 17,2023.
12. The parties submitted written summaries; a judgment has now been rendered.

The parties' arguments

13. The claims of the plaintiff and defendant 2 are essentially similar and will therefore be detailed in a consolidated manner.
14. The Ottoman Settlement [Old Version] 1916The plaintiff and defendant 2 claim that:

12-34-56-78 Chekhov v.  State of Israel, P.D.  51 (2)

1. The defendant was added to the account for convenience purposes and not for the purposes of a gift, in view of the father's incapacity and the mother's fear that under these circumstances, if she passed away before him, his accounts would be frozen and it would not be possible to take care of his needs.
2. The burden of proving that the addition to the account was in order to grant the joiner the funds accumulated in it as a gift is on the person claiming the existence of a gift, regardless of the procedural position in which he is located.

III.   The defendant was added to the account after it was opened, and did not bring external, clear and unequivocal evidence that testifies to the parents' intention to give him the funds accumulated in the account as a gift.

1. The defendant's version regarding the receipt of a gift is not worthy of trust. This is a developing, incoherent and contradictory version, in matters that are at the heart of the dispute, and the presumption of falsehood must be applied to it.
2. The claim that "Longevity Clause" In the bank's documents, it is "צוואה" Just, or a will "Lying down from evil" and at the very least, a gift due to death was raised for the first time in the summaries; In addition, these are alternative factual arguments that cannot coexist.
3. The claim of delay that caused evidentiary damage was rejected in relation to the application for interim relief, and since it was rejected, it is self-evident that the claim of delay in relation to the claim is also liable to be rejected.
4. The defendant claims that:
5. The claim of attachment for convenience purposes was raised with delay, causing significant evidentiary damage to the defendant.
6. The bank documents from 2015, together with the deceased's letter from 2003 and the defendant's testimony, constitute a required mass to prove that the law of joining is the law of gift.

III.   The defendant's testimony was coherent, he did not say anything false.  This is in contrast to the testimonies of his brothers, who turned out to be stumbling liars throughout their testimony.

1. The mother was ill (only physically) at the time of the grant, and therefore it must be determined that she sought to compensate the defendant for the injustice done to him before she passed away. The circumstances of the case are similar to a will "Lying down from evil".
2. The longevity clause can, in certain circumstances, be of a nature "My Will"; The parents' intention was to grant the defendant full rights in the account, both in life and after death.
3. The father was competent to give the consent he gave to the defendant the account; in any event, the question of his eligibility to sign the bank documents does not affect the validity of the gift.

Copied from contempt.   The mother was 100% the owner of the account, and therefore was entitled to perform any action without requiring her husband's consent, and she asked to give the defendant the funds in the account.  It is not clear whether this was the right way and what it means to enter the account after it was opened, but rather whether the mother's intention to grant him ownership of the account was proven.  In this case, there is no other logic to the deceased's action than the granting of a gift to the defendant, the deceased had the discretion to give a gift immediately, and the two conditions set forth in the case law were proven above and beyond.