An article published on December 25, 2013, published on the Globes website: "The Tel Aviv Municipality: This is how an elderly woman of 88 is being chased by her late husband's property taxes, confiscating a bank account and assets, and is threatening to throw her out of her home." Was written by Adi Ben Israel and deals with the struggle, which our office is helping, against the Tel Aviv Municipality
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Tel Aviv Municipality presents: This is how an 88-year-old woman is being persecuted for her late husband's "secret" property tax debt, foreclosing on a bank account and assets, withdrawing money - and threatening to throw her out of her home
The story that became the talk of the day on Facebook about the unbearable opacity of the property tax department towards a nursing elderly woman ■ Tel Aviv Municipality: We will not evict the woman from her home
Globes Service 25/12/13
Carmela Cohen went on a Facebook fight against the Tel Aviv Municipality over the property tax debt of her 88-year-old mother-in-law, following which the Tel Aviv Municipality sold a property of the elderly resident 7 years ago - but continues to pursue it because the sale has not yet been received. Cohen's statuses have received thousands of likes on Facebook and she claims that Mayor Ron Huldai promised to meet with her, but for now the issue is pending.
"This is the hand of my 88-year-old mother-in-law," Cohen wrote earlier this month in one of her Facebook statuses. "This is the hand that raised 6 children, made a decent living and ran a house, the same house in the Hatikva neighborhood where she has lived for 60 years to this day with one of her sons who dined in her old age. The Tel Aviv Municipality, through her attorney For years it was due to an old property tax debt of her late husband on a property that was registered in his name and even sold by the Tel Aviv Municipality years ago to cover that property tax debt in an amount that her officials refused to disclose, and yet it was decided not to cover that debt.
Hand / screenshot from Facebook
"For years, the Tel Aviv Municipality has used to execute my mother-in-law and her husband in their difficult old age and harass them regularly and without their children sharing, and even send a hand to their bank account and confiscate my father-in-law's pension, where the Tel Aviv municipality itself worked. His life as a garbage truck driver.
"About ten years ago, my father-in-law passed away and his debt was inherited by his widow and sons, and so we learned that my widow's mother-in-law had become another goose laying golden eggs for the Tel Aviv Municipality. The foreclosures continued, but my 80-year-old mother-in-law, who already lived alone, did not share her plight until one of her children was present when a couple of foreclosures from the municipality knocked on the door of her house in Shikva Hatikva. All attempts to close the swelling debt were in vain. In the absence of the power of the municipality, they refused to disclose the amount of the debt and were content with the statement: 'You are 6 children, look how you pay the mother's debt'.
"These days, some of the boys learned through the emissary of Adv. Nimtzovich (who continues to empty the foreclosed account to this day unhindered when he leaves as his heart's desire for my mother-in-law's consumption) The amount of the debt is finally known: NIS 900,000, and the debt stands at NIS 900,000 after the municipality sold that property years ago with the property tax debt, and not only pocketed its proceeds, but it continues to rob, years later, my mother-in-law's pension. The 88, as I recall, all these years and undisturbed, leave her a basic subsistence allowance. "
"A few months ago there was a turning point and in execution they withdrew from the crazy demand to sell my mother-in-law's house in Shikva Hatikva in exchange for a debt that will never swell and swell. But the compassionate Tel Aviv municipality, through the same receiver, appealed the decision. The appeal was granted. Tel Aviv Municipality v. 88-year-old widow: one-zero. The house will be sold and the proceeds will be given to the greedy, opaque municipality. My mother-in-law will know what a property tax debt that swells to monstrous proportions is, pay it and see how, like the phoenix, the debt rises A very tired cousin and wife, a gift from the municipality for the sake of prolonging her life.
"Conclusion: I understand that a property tax debt is a property tax debt, but Rabak, there is a cynical, not to mention malicious, exploitation of an elderly couple who did not understand what happened to them. My father-in-law passed away, my mother-in-law from Tel Aviv. "From the day he immigrated to Israel until his death - even the mythological Chich was photographed shaking his hand - will not write a happy ending to this Kafkaesque story? Have you already sold one property to cover the old debt, why another one? Maybe enough? Thank you to everyone who survived the story."
"The consideration for the property has not yet been received"
In another status, Cohen turned to Mayor Huldai and recounted the story - about the debt, about the foreclosures, about the execution. "I saw the minor reaction of the Tel Aviv Municipality to the chained post about the abuse of that municipality by my 88-year-old mother-in-law. And so the municipality said: 'In 2006, a property that was owned by the deceased was sold, but the municipality has not yet received the consideration for this property.' Imagine you sold a property 7 years ago - 7 years (!) - and you are waiting your turn, what is the pressure? Until the money arrives. My mother-in-law, by the way, was not notified of the sale of the property. When it was sold, she was already 81 years old and lived alone in the house.
"Meanwhile in the Hatikva area, we sat yesterday and rummaged through the documents, and next to me my mother-in-law was dozing off on a chair like a sad big baby forgotten in the daycare center. At times she woke up and stared at the wall. And an ancient property tax debt that has become a deceitful monster with many heads will swallow the house for the one who lived in it for 60 years, and faded in it, then a sick man and the property tax department of the Tel Aviv municipality will arrive And a property tax train. Boom. No. To the glory of the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality. "
Cohen calls the municipality's response "poor and false that proves that like a pit without a bottom, there is no way to please the property tax department of the Tel Aviv municipality, because property tax debt is a rising spring that never dries up."
In one of the statuses, she turned to Huldai again and told him: "There are still a few shekels left in my mother-in-law's bank account, but we have to hurry. Last month she was hospitalized for pneumonia, and the doctor informed us that unfortunately, my mother-in-law is now nursing, but do not disturb yourself, she has Dedicated children. She has no money for a nurse, you did not leave; But on the other hand she succeeded with the children. Old man, what has he got in his life? Do you understand, rat? "My mother-in-law has been a resident of Tel Aviv since she was married in 1943." Much, much before you. She and her husband and their six children have never needed the kindness of your city's welfare department. "
"Nursing in-laws"
Cohen then wrote to Huldai: "You can also ... wait for nature to do its thing. And it does. Accept, Mr. Huldai: Two weeks ago my mother-in-law was hospitalized for rheumatoid arthritis.