A leasor of a shop sued the landlord for damage resulting from penetration of rain. The landlord argued that this was due to improper installation of an air conditioner by the tenant and in any case it is a hidden defect that he did not know of and is thus not obligated to fix.
The Court held that under Israel law a landlord must within a reasonable time correct anything that materially restricts the use of the leased property, whether such defect was in place at the time of the lease or occurred thereafter. The burden of proof that the source of the defect is an act of the tenant is on the landlord and was not lifted in this certain case.
A landlord is exempt from the obligation to fix in case of a covert defect that existed at the time of entry into the lease, was not known to the landlord and the landlord need not have known about it, could not have avoided it and the fixing of the default is impossible or burden the landlord in a manner fundamentally different from that agreed between the parties. However, in this case the Court held that there is no problem to fix the defect and thus the exemption does not apply.