Buying a new apartment from a developer

The law lets a developer take up to seven percent of the price with no security at all. On a 2.5 million shekel apartment that is roughly 175,000 shekels sitting with him, uncovered. A family that scraped together the down payment, signed, and started waiting later discovers that the hardest payment they made is the one payment with no paper behind it. If the project stalls, that is the money left outside. So our standard starts at the first shekel, not the seventh.

What we do

• Every payment goes through the voucher book into the project's escrow account. A shekel that bypassed a voucher is never covered by the guarantee.
• The guarantee is issued by the financing bank within the period the law sets from the date of payment, not "later on".
• The guarantee amount is updated after each payment, including upgrades, buyer-requested changes and anything added after signing.
• The default events written into the agreement match the ones in the statute — attachment, stay of proceedings, liquidation, receivership — with no narrower list.
• The security is released only once the condition the law sets for substitution is met: construction completed and possession actually handed over.

Where it breaks

• The agreement refers to "security as required by law" in general terms and leaves the issuer, the delivery deadline and the update mechanism open, so the argument arrives after you have already paid.
• Extras bought after signing are routed as a separate payment outside the voucher mechanism, and stay uncovered.

One document decides whether your money is recoverable — and we require it from the first payment.

A couple signing today for an apartment delivered in three years is not closing a price. They are closing a formula. The law already caps it: escalation only to the construction inputs index, at most half of each payment, and the first twenty percent of the price not linked at all. But a cap is not a standard. The gap between a sloppily drafted escalation clause and a carefully drafted one runs to tens of thousands of shekels nobody showed you in the sales office.

What we do

• Indexation is tied to the construction inputs index only, with a named base index — a figure and a date, not a vague reference.
• The first twenty percent of the contract price stays unlinked, as the law provides.
• Indexation stops at the contractual delivery date. The developer's delay does not roll further index months onto you.
• A falling index is credited too, with no one-way floor that recognizes only increases.
• Every payment in the schedule carries an explicit line: which part of it is linked and which is not.

Where it breaks

• "Linked to the index" with no identified base index, so the starting point for the calculation is effectively set on payment day.
• An asymmetric mechanism that passes increases through in full and stops decreases at a floor.

A price you agreed should stay a price, not a formula that reveals itself at the final payment.

The movers are booked, the rental is handed back, the mortgage is already running. Then comes notice of a six-month postponement. Statutory delay compensation exists for exactly that moment: once the delay exceeds a month, the buyer is entitled to compensation equal to the rent of a comparable apartment, rising to 125% and then 150% at later stages, with no need to prove loss. The whole clause rests on one thing: whether the delivery date in the contract is genuinely a date.

What we do

• The delivery date is a calendar date, not a derivative of an event ("two years from the permit", "from Form 4").
• Compensation is paid at the end of each month for that month, not offset against the final payment or deferred to a closing account.
• The agreement defines in advance how the rent of a comparable apartment in size and location is determined, so the dispute does not start there.
• The only exceptions are the statutory ones: an act or omission of the buyer, and frustration through extreme unforeseeable circumstances.
• A contractual grace period does not reduce the statutory count — the statute cannot be contracted around except in the buyer's favor.

Where it breaks

• Stretching "force majeure" into a list of ordinary industry events: labor shortages, regulatory delays, weather, materials supply.
• Tying the start of the count to an event within the developer's control, so the date you count from moves along with the construction.

Delay compensation is worth exactly as much as the date you count it from.

The moment the final payment leaves your account, your leverage ends. Until then you hold something the developer wants. After it, you hold a punch list and a phone number. The Sale Law regulations build that logic in as the default: the last slice of the price is paid on the occupancy approval and actual handover of the apartment, not on a date on paper. We ask for the same logic even where the money is secured by a guarantee, because that is precisely where your leverage lives.

What we do

• The balance is paid close to actual handover, against keys and a signed handover protocol.
• The occupancy approval is in hand before the final payment, not promised for later.
• A final release letter from the financing bank is a condition of payment, not an annex that follows.
• Defects recorded in the protocol stay open and must be fixed; paying does not close them.
• If handover is postponed, the payment date moves with it. The two dates are tied.

Where it breaks

• Tying the final payment to a calendar date or to the developer's unilateral notice of readiness, detached from actual handover.
• Drafting the handover protocol as a general confirmation that the buyer has no claims regarding the apartment.

The final payment leaves the same hand that receives the key.

In a bank-financed project the land and the building are pledged to the financing bank — your apartment included. The release letter is the paper that carves your apartment out of that lien. The law regulates the request and the timetable, but it does not tell you what the letter must cover. Families find the gap years after handover: the letter spoke about "the apartment", the parking space and storeroom stayed under the lien, and registration stalled.

What we do

• The release covers everything sold to you: parking, storeroom, balcony, garden and any other attached unit.
• The apartment is identified in the letter by exact number and sub-parcel, not by general description.
• A conditional release becomes unconditional on the final payment, through a written mechanism.
• The statutory timetables for approaching the bank and delivering the notice are enforced as written.
• The release addresses the lien on the land too, not only the one registered against the apartment.

Where it breaks

• A letter drafted around "the apartment" alone, while the attached units are registered as part of the common property.
• Leaving the release to the end of the process, by which point there is no leverage left to correct the wording.

This letter is what separates an apartment that is yours from an apartment pledged to a bank. It should be written precisely.

The difference between the inspection period and the warranty period is the difference in who carries the burden of proof. During the inspection period the developer must show the defect was caused by you. After it, during the warranty period, the burden shifts to you. A family finding a crack in year four is not arguing about the crack; they are arguing about which category it falls into. So the categories and the count belong in the agreement, not in a conversation.

What we do

• The periods in the statutory schedule are preserved in full, and each element is classified by what it actually is: sealing, cracks, external cladding, systems.
• The warranty period is defined in the agreement as the period beginning when the inspection period ends, as the law provides.
• The count starts when your apartment is placed at your disposal, not from Form 4 and not from the first handover in the building.
• A fundamental defect keeps the long period the law assigns to it.
• The agreement sets a documented notice channel, because the buyer has notice deadlines too — a visible defect is reported within a year of handover.

Where it breaks

• Using the technical specification to classify defects into a shorter category than the statutory schedule assigns.
• Conditioning the warranty on using the developer's service providers or maintenance plan.

The right exists in the statute. The agreement decides whether you can use it without a fight.

Sewage backing up on a Friday afternoon does not wait for the service desk to open. The law already answers this: where an urgent defect is not repaired within a reasonable time, or where the same defect recurs after being fixed, the buyer may repair it and the developer bears the cost. The problem is that "reasonable time" on a Friday night with water in the living room means hours, and the agreement says nothing. That number has to be written in advance, while there is still someone to talk to.

What we do

• The agreement defines what counts as an urgent defect and the response time for it, in hours.
• There is an available, documented notice channel, including out-of-hours contact.
• The reimbursement mechanism is written out: when it is paid, what documentation is needed, and no prior developer approval as a condition to acting.
• A recurrence of the same defect after repair is counted within the period the law sets from the date of notice.
• Self-repair carried out in these circumstances is not a breach and does not void the inspection and warranty cover on that element.

Where it breaks

• Conditioning every repair on the developer's prior approval, so his silence is what blocks the right.
• A sweeping clause voiding the warranty for any work done in the apartment by anyone other than the developer, urgent cases included.

In an urgent defect the protection is measured in hours, so it has to be written in hours.

Almost every sale agreement carries a change-of-law clause, and almost always it travels in one direction: any tax, levy or fee imposed after signing rolls onto the buyer. That is a contractual term, not a statutory right, which is exactly why it can be changed. Our request is simple: if the price rises when the state raises a charge, it should fall when the state cuts one. A family that paid an extra hundred thousand after one change and saw nothing from the reverse change knows precisely what this is about.

What we do

• The change-of-law clause is drafted in both directions, for increases and decreases alike.
• What it covers is spelled out — tax, VAT, fee, levy — and which component of the price it touches.
• When and how a reduction reaches you is defined: a credit against the next payment, not "to be taken into account".
• A change taking effect after the contractual delivery date is not passed on where the delay is not the buyer's responsibility.
• Charges the law imposes on the seller stay with the seller; the agreement does not reclassify them.

Where it breaks

• A one-way clause that moves every new charge to the buyer and stays entirely silent on the reverse.
• A broad definition of "levy" or "fee" that swallows charges which are in substance part of the developer's project costs.

If the price can rise with the state, it should be able to fall with it too.