Shabbat Parashat Lech Lecha 5785

P'ninat Mishpat: Proof Needed to Remove a Squatter – part I

Case: The plaintiff (=pl), an educational organization that has a kollel, have been operating for many years out of a property (=prp) owned by a municipality (=mun). In 2021, they rented out part of prp to the defendant (=def), a yeshiva, for a year, for 20,000 NIS a month. Toward the end of the year, pl informed def that the rental would not be renewed and that they must vacate prp. When def refused to leave, pl placed locks on the doors to keep def’s students out. Def asked beit din for a restraining order to remove the locks and allow def in. Beit din rejected this request, yet def ignored the ruling and got in. Pl asked beit din to have def removed and make them pay the unpaid portions of their rental and, looking forward, 1,000 NIS for every day they do not vacate. Def claim that pl has no right to remove them or demand money because pl are neither the owners nor the organization that was given control of the property, which was org2. Pl says that since org2 were unable to finance building on prp and operating there, they gave pl, who paid substantially, all such rights.

Ruling: [We will look at various elements of this long psak din over several weeks. We first look at def’s claim that no one but mun has a right to remove them.]

First we will determine the matter of control over prp. There are no contracts that give org2 rights over prp. However, this is not proof that they do not have such rights. A state comptroller report criticized municipalities throughout Israel, prominently including mun, for not documenting the legal status of many hundreds of organizations that occupy properties the municipalities own. Furthermore, mun obligated org2 to pay municipal land taxes for its use of prp, and org2’s public financial reports have listed themselves as having rights over prp without ever being questioned over it. In def’s claims before beit din, they also treated org2 as having rights (as opposed to pl).

Def claimed that since mun set prp as a place where Torah-related activities of the community should be held, they have as much right as anyone else to be there and cannot be removed by non-owners. Beit din rejects this claim outright. It does not make sense that org2 should build with permission on public property and pay municipal taxes and yet def will get to use it as they please without permission from mun or org2. Therefore, absent of agreement, def’s status in prp is not of a muchzak (one with practical control), but of a tofes (squatter).

The complication is that at this point in the litigation, org2 has not clarified their exact relationship with pl regarding prp. Thus, we need to look into the claim of one who is in a property without claims to rights to it but refuses to be removed by another, who does claim ownership without their proving that ownership.

We will continue from this point next week.

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