How UK Owners Struck an Extra Storey From a Ramat Gan Permit

Result: The additional storey and the reduced side building line were struck out on appeal, and the permit issued for the plan-compliant envelope · Timeline: 11 months · Challenge: A 15-day objection window that reached the owners on day nine · Authority: Tel Aviv District Appeals Committee · Financial Impact: NIS 410,000 of appraised value loss cut to NIS 90,000, at a total cost of NIS 44,000

Background

A brother in Leeds and a sister in north London inherited their mother's four-room apartment in Ramat Gan in 2019. It sits on the third floor of a five-storey block off Bialik Street, and since the succession order they have let it to the same family at NIS 6,800 a month, managing everything by email through a local agent. Neither of them had been to Israel since the funeral.

In February the tenant sent a photograph over WhatsApp. A sign had gone up on the fence of the adjoining plot, printed in Hebrew, announcing that the owners had applied for a building permit and that objections could be filed. The agent translated it that evening. The applicants wanted an additional storey above what the town planning scheme allowed, a reduction of the side building line, and a change of use of the ground floor to offices. The objection period was 15 days, and nine of them had already gone.

The Challenge

Israeli planning law gives neighbours two very different clocks, and almost every owner abroad confuses them. Where a town planning scheme is deposited for public inspection, Section 100 of the Planning and Building Law 5725-1965 grants a right of objection to anyone with an interest in land who considers themselves aggrieved, and Section 102 gives two months from publication of the deposit notice. That is the generous track. The other track is the building permit. Where an applicant asks for a relaxation (הקלה, hakala) or a non-conforming use (שימוש חורג, shimush choreg), Section 149 imposes preconditions before the permit can be granted: publication in a daily newspaper and a local newspaper, a sign posted on the site itself, and notice by registered post to adjoining rights holders and occupiers who may be harmed. The period for objecting on that track is 15 days.

Two problems compounded each other. The registered letter had gone to the address recorded against the property, which was still their late mother's Ramat Gan address, so the statutory notice reached nobody. And an objection under the Planning and Building (Objection Procedures, Investigator's Powers) Regulations 5749-1989 has to be accompanied by an affidavit verifying the facts. An affidavit sworn before an English solicitor needs an apostille from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office before Israel will look at it, and the standard FCDO turnaround would have consumed most of the six days that remained.

The substance was worth defending. The added storey would have put a wall roughly 2.7 metres from the sister's bedroom windows and taken the afternoon light from the western elevation. Our appraiser's first read, done from photographs and the plan file, put the loss at around 9% of value. On an apartment appraised at NIS 4.5M that is NIS 410,000, which is a large number to lose to a Hebrew notice on a fence.

In Practice: Section 149 of the Planning and Building Law 5725-1965 allows only 15 days to object to a permit sought with a relaxation or a non-conforming use, against the two months that Section 102 gives for a deposited plan, and the notice must go out in a daily and a local newspaper, on a sign at the site, and by registered post to adjoining owners and occupiers. Objections are filed with the Ramat Gan local planning and building committee. A property appraiser's opinion to support an objection of this kind costs NIS 8,000 to NIS 15,000, and the committee heard the objection five months after it was filed.

What We Did

We solved the affidavit problem at the Israeli Embassy, not through the FCDO. Both siblings swore their affidavits before the consular notary at the Israeli Embassy in London on day 12. A document notarised by an Israeli consular officer is directly valid in Israel and needs no apostille at all, which removed the FCDO step and roughly a week of posting from the critical path. That single choice is what made the deadline achievable, and it is the same route we use for Israeli consular notarisation at an embassy abroad in property files generally.

We pulled the application file before drafting a word. The local committee's building file (תיק בניין, tik binyan) held the submitted drawings, the applicants' justification for each relaxation, and the internal engineering comments. Objections that complain the building is too tall are dismissed. Objections that identify a specific defect in the application are the ones a committee has to answer.

We objected on four grounds, each tied to the file. First, the additional storey was not a relaxation at all in substance but a departure that belonged in a plan amendment, since it exceeded the envelope the scheme fixed rather than adjusting it at the margin. Second, no shading study had been submitted, although the western elevation of our clients' block would be affected for most of the winter afternoon. Third, the parking schedule showed provision below the applicable standard once the ground floor became offices. Fourth, the sign at the site had gone up but the registered letters had gone to superseded addresses, so the Section 149 notice requirements had not in fact been met.

We filed on day 14 and then waited. The objection was heard five months later. The local committee accepted the parking point, imposed a condition, and rejected the rest, approving the storey and the reduced side building line.

We appealed within the 30 days. Section 152 of the Planning and Building Law gives a person aggrieved by a local committee's rejection of a Section 149 objection a right of appeal to the District Appeals Committee, and the procedure runs under the Planning and Building (Procedure in Appeals Committees) Regulations 5756-1996. We narrowed the appeal to the two points that carried the money, filed the appraiser's full opinion and a shading analysis prepared by a planning consultant, and dropped the notice argument, which had served its purpose in the file below.

In Practice: Section 152 of the Planning and Building Law 5725-1965 requires an appeal against the rejection of a Section 149 objection to be lodged with the Tel Aviv District Appeals Committee within 30 days of delivery of the local committee's decision. The appeal took six months from filing to decision. Total professional costs across both stages came to NIS 44,000, made up of NIS 26,000 in legal fees, NIS 11,000 for the appraiser, NIS 5,500 for the planning consultant's shading and parking analysis, and about NIS 1,500 in consular fees and courier charges.

The Outcome

The Tel Aviv District Appeals Committee cancelled the additional storey and the reduction of the side building line, holding that a relaxation cannot be used to achieve what amounts to a change in the scheme itself. It left the change of use of the ground floor in place, subject to the parking condition the local committee had already imposed. The applicants did not seek further review, and a revised permit issued four weeks later for the plan-compliant envelope.

Our appraiser re-valued the apartment against the permit as finally granted. The residual impact, attributable almost entirely to the ground-floor offices and the traffic they bring, came out at NIS 90,000 rather than the NIS 410,000 that the original application would have cost. The tenancy continued uninterrupted throughout, and the rent was renewed at NIS 7,100 the following year.

Eleven months passed between the photograph of the sign and the revised permit. Neither owner travelled to Israel, and neither gave evidence in person.

Key Takeaways

What this case illustrates for non-residents in similar situations:

1. Put a current address for service on the property record and keep it current. The Section 149 letter is sent by registered post to the address the register holds. Where that address belongs to a deceased parent or a sold flat, the statutory notice is technically served and practically invisible, and the 15 days run regardless.
2. Know which of the two clocks you are on before you do anything else. A deposited plan gives two months under Section 102. A permit application with a relaxation gives 15 days under Section 149. Owners abroad routinely assume they have the longer period, and by the time they discover otherwise the permit has issued.
3. Use an Israeli consular notary when the deadline is short. An affidavit sworn at an Israeli embassy or consulate is valid in Israel immediately, while a locally sworn affidavit has to go through the apostille authority in your own country first. On a 15-day window that difference decides whether you file at all.
4. Objections win on planning defects, not on unhappiness. Shading, privacy, parking provision, access, and whether the relaxation exceeds what the section permits are arguments a committee must answer. An appraiser's or planning consultant's opinion is what converts a complaint into one of those arguments.
5. Treat the local committee as the first round, not the last. Section 152 gives 30 days to appeal to the District Appeals Committee, which reviews the planning merits afresh and, as here, reverses. If the plan is approved anyway and your apartment loses value without being touched, a separate claim for injurious affection lies under Section 197, with a three-year deadline that quietly expires while owners abroad are still absorbing the news. The wider routine that prevents all of this is covered in our guide to managing Israeli property from abroad, and the deadlines are set out in our answer on objecting to a neighbouring Israeli building plan from overseas.

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Facing a Similar Situation?

If a sign has appeared near your Israeli property, or a neighbour has mentioned an application, the first question is which notice you are looking at and how many days are left on it, because that determines everything else. Waiting until the permit issues moves you from an objection, which is cheap, to a compensation claim, which is not.

Contact us for a confidential consultation about your Israeli legal matter.