Legal Updates

It is not possible to content “Non Est Factum” when the basic essence of the action that was taken was indeed understood

June 26, 2024
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A guarantor for a bank loan sought to cancel the guarantees signed by her for the loan granted to her son due to the fact that she does not speak Hebrew at the level required to understand the language of the guarantee and her signature is in the context of "Non Est Factum."

The Court rejected the guarantor's contention to invalidate the guarantees due to her basic understanding of the type of transaction she entered into. A person who enters a contract is deemed to have understood what he is signing and contending that he did not read or understand what he was signing for and therefore the contract is invalid - will not be accepted. An exception to this is the "Non Est Factum" contention, which refers to a situation in which the signatory was led to think that the document has a fundamentally different essence than it actually did. This contention will not be accepted when it is a document relating to a transaction of the same type that the signatory sought, and the signatory made a mistake or was misled only with regards to the details of the transaction. Here, a person who does not speak Hebrew at sufficient level necessary to understand everything stated in the guarantee documents, but did understand that she is signing guarantee documents for a loan taken by her son. Hence, the guarantor understood the type of transaction she signed and therefore cannot content "Non Est Factum".