Registering a building: In Israel, many residential buildings are run as condominiums. This usually arises mostly when apartment owners are interested in selling the property and must provide proof of their rights, or when they are interested in regulating building deviations in their property. Then, they suddenly discover that they are not registered as owners in the Land Registry Office, since they do not appear in the condominium record. According to Israel’s Land Law, 5729-1969, a condominium is a house with two or more apartments in a single construction, which was registered in the condominium record.
To clarify, the law further adds that “even when the house is not listed in the Condominium Record, but is described as such, it must be run as a condominium”.
There are several reasons that an apartment is not registered in the owner’s name in the Land Registry Office:
- Advance collection of the owner’s attorney fees vis-à-vis the contractor. Therefore, the contractor still has not paid the lawyer in order to transfer the rights.
- A loophole in the Land Appreciation Tax Law from the 1950s. Contractors registered the building in the name of a company incorporated, and sold shares instead of apartments. That way, they did not pay land appreciation tax tolls.
- Delays and/or incompletion of the parcelization of land procedure in the area: division of real estate, according to zoning, into the plots registered in the record is done by the local committee.
- The construction company or contractor did not register the housing rights of the apartment owners and of the apartments themselves, for various reasons.
- The construction company or contractor did not register the condominium’s owners or apartments, for various reasons.
What Must be Done? Preparation of a Land Registration Blueprint
Claude Architects specializes in registering condominiums in the Land Registry Office. The process requires the involvement of an architect and of an attorney. As architects who are well-versed in this field, we know that the registration process is long and complicated. Our involvement will significantly reduce the duration of your application.
Every blueprint includes:
- Affidavit by the sketcher, who declares that the information provided faithfully reflects the apartments.
- Environment and plot sketches.
- Plans for each floor of the building + details of the apartments themselves.
- Detail table of the building.
- Joining of areas (if relevant)—parking, roof, etc.
When the plot has a comment according to regulation 27 in Israel’s real estate regulations, one must submit the blueprint through the local planning and building committee for approval, and only after that submit it for registration.
Claude Architects accompanies the registration process all the way. In addition, we provide property measuring services and computerized blueprints and sketches. We also work together with an attorney, who accompanies the process in its entirety in order to regulate the bureaucratic procedure.