A person purchased an "apartment" but in retrospect it became clear to him that from a planning perspective it was an area that constituted a sealed space on the foundation floor and that the apartment did not have a legal building permit. The purchaser sought damages from both the seller and the lawyer who accompanied the sale transaction.
The Court accepted the purchaser’s claim and held that both the seller and the lawyer pay damages to the purchaser. An harmed party is entitled to damages caused to it as a result of a breach of contract and its consequences and which the breacher saw or should have seen in advance, at the time of the conclusion of the contract, as a probable result of the breach. Presenting a representation of a fact knowingly it is not correct and with the intention that the erring person will act based on the false representation constitutes fraud. Here, the nature of the apartment as described in the sale agreement did not correspond to the real planning situation of the apartment, which is a sealed space built without a legal building permit and by that the agreement was breached. In addition, both the seller and the lawyer presented the "apartment" to the purchaser as an "apartment" for all intents and purposes, built based on a legal permit, and the purcahser relied on this false representation, purchased the "apartment" and suffered a financial damage as a result of that. Therefore, the seller and the lawyer will jointly compensate the purchaser by hundreds of thousands of shekels - an amount that reflects the value of the ownership rights in the "apartment" as an apartment built under a lawful building permit.