Your article mentions land ownership. This is the land ownership policies in democratic Isra-El:
Land Ownership In Isra-El
Laws regarding property ownership in Israel Question -
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 planely 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.
I assume that your question is not theoretical, but related to certain
specific circumstances. If you wish, you are invited to provide me with
further information ? especially regarding the identity details of the
potential buyer (whether a person or a corporation, citizenship, religion,
country of residence, and so on). And regarding the details of the
property that you wish to purchase (whether private/state owned, the
exact rights of the current owner/seller, and if possible ? the
identifying details of the property itself ? block and parcel numbers)
and I will further check if the purchase can be executed and completed. |
