Successors who sought to record the land they inherited in the Land Registry discovered that their land had been sold by someone other than the real owner on the basis of a forged will.
The Court partly accepted the claim, due to non-compliance with the Isreal Land Registry Regulations and due to the principal of Market Overt. The Israeli Land Registry Regulations stipulate that in order to record a real estate transaction based on inheritance, an original inheritance order or at least a notarized certified copy must be presented, and the Land Registrar is also obliged to double-check every application submitted with all its documents. However, even if an application was recorded on the basis of inauthentic documents, the Market Overt principle determines ownership of a property when the transaction was made in good faith. Here, no review was made by the Land Registrar, the seals, dates and inheritance file number were incorrect, and the registrar approved the application on the basis of a document that purported to be a copy of an inheritance decree, without requiring the production of the original decree or at least a notarized copy. However, the purchaser was unaware of the forgery and relied on the registry in good faith. Therefore, despite the forgery and negligence of the registrar, the purchase was not annulled, but the State was required to compensate.