A married couple signed a separation agreement that stated that each had no financial claims against the other, but despite this they remained married and did not officially divorce. The husband passed without leaving a will.
The Court accepted the motion of the wife to inherit her past-spouse due to the existence of a marital relationship between the testator and her. Israeli law stipulates that in order for a person to inherit its spouse, the fact that the spouses were officially married at the time of the spouse's demise is the only thing to be reviewed, with no significance to the question of the nature of the relationship between them, nor to the situation in which they live separately at the time of the testator's demise. Here, the couple did indeed sign a document in which they defined their desire to separate and the property separation between them, but they never formally divorced and only lived separately. Therefore, the wife should inherit her share in her spouse's estate.