How a Translation Error Nearly Sank a Foreign Will in Israel

Result: A foreign-language will admitted to Israeli probate after a corrected notarial translation, releasing a NIS 2.6M estate to heirs in three countries · Timeline: 11 months from the stalled application to the final order · Challenge: Private translation diverged from the original on a key bequest · Authority: Inheritance Registrar and Family Court · Financial Impact: NIS 2.6M estate preserved

Background

A widower who had lived most of his life in continental Europe died leaving a will drafted and signed in his own language, in front of a local notary, several years before his death. He owned an apartment in central Israel and a shekel bank account, alongside assets back home. His four children were scattered: one near the family's home country, two in North America, one in Australia. None of them lived in Israel, and none read Hebrew. To unlock the Israeli assets they needed a will execution order (tzav kiyum tzava'ah) from the Israeli authorities, which meant putting a foreign-language document in front of an Israeli registrar who would only read it in Hebrew. That single requirement, a translation, became the fault line that almost split the family and froze the estate for the better part of a year.

The Challenge

Israeli probate of a foreign will runs through the Inheritance Registrar (Rasham HaYerushot) at the Ministry of Justice, under the Succession Law 1965 (Hok HaYerusha). The Registrar issues the will execution order in an uncontested matter. The law also recognises foreign wills: Section 137 of the Succession Law 1965 treats a will as formally valid if it complies with the law of the place where it was made, the testator's domicile, his nationality, or his habitual residence. So the original document was not the problem. The translation was.

The children's first lawyer had commissioned a translation from a private agency and filed it with the application. On most clauses it was fine. On one clause it was not. The disputed paragraph dealt with the Israeli apartment, and the agency's Hebrew rendering allocated the apartment differently from what the original text actually said. In the source language the testator had left the apartment to be shared among three of the four children in stated fractions. The translation read as though it passed to one child outright. That is not a stylistic quibble. It changes who inherits a NIS 2.6M asset.

One of the children, the one the faulty translation appeared to favour, was content to let it stand. Another, who lost out under the mistranslation, was not. The dispute that followed was not really about the father's wishes, which the original made tolerably clear, but about a defective translation. The objecting heir filed an objection, and under the Succession Law 1965 an objection moves the file out of the Registrar's hands and into the Family Court (Beit HaMishpat LeInyanei Mishpacha). The application stalled. Until the Hebrew text matched the original, no Israeli court would issue an order on it.

In Practice: Under the Succession Law 1965, a will execution order is issued by the Inheritance Registrar (Rasham HaYerushot), but an objection transfers the file to the Family Court (Beit HaMishpat LeInyanei Mishpacha), which adds roughly 4 to 8 months to the timetable. On this NIS 2.6M estate, the contested phase ran about NIS 55,000 in combined legal and translation costs across the heirs, against the value of the single apartment clause in dispute. A foreign will is recognised under Section 137 of the same law where it is valid by the law of the place it was made or the testator's domicile.

What We Did

We were brought in by the heir who had been short-changed by the translation, but the path forward served every child who actually wanted the father's real instructions carried out. The strategy was not to argue about words in the abstract. It was to put an unimpeachable Hebrew version of the will in front of the court and let the discrepancy resolve itself.

The first step was a notarial certified translation. The Notaries Law 1976 (Hok HaNotarionim) governs how a translation is certified for use in Israel. Section 15 of that law is precise: a notary may certify the correctness of a translation only when the notary is fluent in both the source language and Hebrew, having personally checked the translation. Where no notary commands the source language, the route is a translator's sworn affidavit, with the notary certifying the affidavit rather than the translation itself. The original was in a language with few notaries qualified in Israel, so finding one fluent in it took coordination, but we located a notary who could certify the translation directly under Section 15. That certificate carries far more weight than an agency stamp.

We paired it with a sworn expert-translator affidavit aimed squarely at the disputed clause. The expert set the two versions side by side, explained exactly where the private agency had gone wrong, and reconciled the fractions in the original to the corrected Hebrew. A court reading an objection wants to see not just a better translation but a clear account of why the first one was wrong. That affidavit did that work.

The third piece was the original document itself, properly authenticated. We obtained an apostilled copy of the foreign-language will from the competent authority in the country where it was signed, under the Hague Apostille Convention 1961, so the Israeli court had an authenticated original to read the certified translation against. The interaction between an apostilled foreign document and its Hebrew translation is a point of frequent confusion, and our guide on whether apostilled documents still need a Hebrew translation in Israel sets out the rule the heirs had to satisfy here.

The cross-border logistics shaped every step. The four children sat in four time zones, and not one of them could fly to Israel for a hearing. Each signed a power of attorney and, where needed, an affidavit, apostilled in their own country, so Israeli counsel could act for them. Scheduling a single call with all four plus the notary meant juggling a working day that started in Australia and ended in North America. The apostilled original had to be obtained abroad, in the home country, then couriered. The notary fluent in the source language had to be matched to the document before any certified translation could even begin. For the wider framework on foreign wills, the guide to the validity of foreign wills in Israel tracks the rules we were working within.

With the corrected package assembled, we refiled. The notarial certified translation, the expert affidavit reconciling the disputed clause, the apostilled original, and the powers of attorney went back to the Family Court, which by then held the contested file.

In Practice: Under Section 15 of the Notaries Law 1976, a notary may certify a translation only if fluent in both the source language and Hebrew; otherwise the translator swears an affidavit that the notary then certifies. Notary translation fees are fixed by regulation: NIS 245 for the first 100 words, NIS 193 for each further 100 words up to 1,000, and NIS 96 per 100 words beyond that, plus VAT. For a will of around 900 words, the certified translation cost roughly NIS 1,800 plus VAT and was produced within about two weeks once a notary fluent in the source language was engaged.

The Outcome

Eleven months after the application first stalled, the Family Court issued the will execution order on the corrected file. The notarial certified translation replaced the defective private one. Reconciled against the apostilled original and supported by the expert affidavit, the Hebrew text now matched the source on the disputed clause, and the objecting heir's challenge fell away. The apartment passed in the fractions the father had actually written, shared among the three children he had named, not to the single child the bad translation had favoured.

With the order in hand, the heirs registered the apartment at the Land Registry and dealt with the Israeli bank, both of which accepted the will execution order without further argument. The estate, worth about NIS 2.6M between the apartment and the account, was distributed as the father intended. The child who had relied on the faulty translation kept his correct, smaller share; the objection was withdrawn once the corrected translation made the dispute pointless. What had looked like a family fight over a will turned out to be a fixable document problem, and fixing the document ended the fight.

Key Takeaways

What this case illustrates for non-residents probating a foreign-language will in Israel:

1. The translation is part of the will, not an afterthought. An Israeli registrar acts on the Hebrew text in front of them. A single mistranslated bequest clause can hand an asset to the wrong heir and trigger an objection that moves the file to the Family Court.
2. Use a notarial certified translation, not an agency translation, for a foreign will. Section 15 of the Notaries Law 1976 lets a notary fluent in both languages certify the translation directly, which carries the evidentiary weight a contested probate demands.
3. Where no notary commands the source language, the translator swears an affidavit that a notary certifies. Plan early, because matching a notary to an uncommon source language takes time and shapes your whole timetable.
4. Always file the apostilled original alongside the certified translation. The court reconciles the two, and an authenticated original under the Hague Apostille Convention 1961 is what lets the corrected Hebrew text settle a dispute.
5. A translation discrepancy is curable without a full inheritance fight. Reconcile the disputed clause with an expert affidavit and a notarial translation, and an objection built on the error often dissolves on its own.

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Facing a Similar Situation?

If a relative left a will in a language other than Hebrew and you need it accepted in Israeli probate, the quality of the translation can decide who inherits and whether the estate moves at all.

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