Isra-EL is a democracy?
When did that happen? Whose democracy is it?
Tell me about land ownership in Isra-El.
Better yet, let me tell you about land ownership in Isra-EL:
Laws regarding property ownership in Israel
Are there any laws regarding (or limiting) who can own residential property in Israel?
First, let me relate to the formal-legal aspect of your question:
Real-Estate in Israel can be divided, for the purpose of answering your question, into 2 categories: Private owned, and State owned.
In the ?Private owned? category we include all real-estate that is owned by private people and/or private/public corporations and/or any other recognized legal entity, excluding the state of Israel itself, also excluding governmental institutions or governmental corporations, and also excluding local-authorities/municipalities.
In the ?State owned? category we therefore include all real-estate that is owned by the state of Israel itself and/or governmental institutions and/or governmental corporations and/or local-authorities/municipalities.
Private owned real-estate, whether residential or non-residential, can be sold to and owned by any legal entity, including any foreign citizen and/or foreign resident and/or foreign company. This includes, of course, non-Jewish persons.
With State owned real-estate, whether residential or non-residential, the situation is far more complicated: 1. According to a basic (constitutional) Law called The Basic Law of the Lands of Israel, The State may not sell the ownership in it's lands to anyone, not even citizens of Israel and/or Israeli corporations. This rule has some exceptions, which I believe are not relevant for you. Nevertheless, the state may and does rent (lease) it's real-estate, keeping the ownership always to itself. The rent (lease) is usually for a period of 49 years that automatically renews itself for another 49 years, so in total ? 98 years. The long period of the rent makes the leaser almost an owner, yet the state, as formal owner, may intervene and/or veto requested actions in the real-estate (such as building on it, as any owner would). If you need more information in this area, please send me another question, with the specific circumstances/questions that you would want me to relate to. A big part of the residential property in Israel is owned by the State and leased to the residents in the above way.
2. The State of Israel has rules restricting the possibility of foreign people and foreign corporations to lease State owned residential property. In general, these limitations do not allow foreigners to acquire State owned property. There are several exceptions, one of which is that foreigners that are entitled to Israeli Citizenship according to the Israeli Law of Return would recieve permission to buy (actually ? as said above ? rent) such State owned property. The above Law gives this privilege to any Jewish person, man or woman, anywhere around the Globe. Non-Jewish persons would have grave difficulties to own (actually ? as said above ? rent) state owned real-estate. The above situation is both when renting the real-estate from the State itself (?first hand? property, that is new property/apartment) and when buying the rights from a former renter (?second hand? property/apartment)
3. In addition to the above, special problems may rise if the desired residential property is not in one of the cities but in a Kibbutz or other social-corporated village, usually integrating residential usage and agronomical usage of the lands. Not only that these lands are owned by the State, therefore the above rules in art. 1-2 apply, but these social-corporations have inner rules 1-2 apply, but these social-corporations have inner rules restricting who may become a member in them. These inner rules usually do not allow foreigners and non-citizens to become their members.
Yet, the answer to your question cannot be considered as complete without relating also to practical aspects regarding ownership of residential property in Israel, some of which are:
1. Lately there were several interesting petitions of Israeli Arabs to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem asking to cancel the above limitations, which are plainly against the principal of equality. The Supreme court did intervene lately in one case and demanded that an Israeli Arab family would be allowed to rent a state owned residential property in one such settlement, but this is far from being the practical situation.
2. Local authorities and municipalities also tend, from time to time, to restrict and/or forbid foreigners from buying private owned property. They do so un-lawfully using their statutory powers. For example ? you cannot register real-estate that you have purchased (even after you have finished paying to the seller the full agreed-upon price) unless you present to the land registar a written confirmation from the local authority / municipality according to which all the taxes that it is entitled to recieve were fully paid. In a famous case that got all the way to the Supreme Court years ago, one local-authority refused to provide the above confirmation (although all taxes were paid) because the buyer was a Christian religious organization which was purchasing many lands in it's area. The Supreme Court ruled against that local authority stating that it had no privilege to consider such un-relevant consideration as the identity of the buyer when asked to provide that tax-paid confirmation, and that religious organization did recieve the full ownership over the lands that it bought. Yet, such practical problems still arise from time to time. |
