The Property Location Processes

Matmonet’s staff is very knowledgeable and experienced in real estate-related practice areas, from planning, land taxation, mapping and aerial photography, and every issue  related to legal proceedings regarding estates and real estate inheritances.

Matmonet’s staff follows changes to outline plans throughout the country, focusing on areas that were recently approved for construction. These lands were acquired decades ago and they were low in value. This is partially why land owners held them in low regard, to the point of never having told family members that they owned them.

Matmonet’s staff knows how to locate and identify lands, whose owners, who are virtually all deceased, neglected for decades, and the heirs never took care of transferring the land to their name or they are not aware of their interest in the land at all. Matmonet’s staff is highly proficient in diagnosing neglected land. The tell-tale signs of neglected land include non-payment of the property taxes that were imposed upon the land for many years (the tax was cancelled and does no longer exist).

When Land is Located

When Matmonet’s staff is satisfied that the land had been neglected for many years, it takes some measures to verify its findings. The staff checks for inheritance orders, paid or unpaid taxes, and many other parameters, to become fully satisfied that the owners of the land or their heirs are completely unaware of the existence of the land to which they are entitled.

The Process to Locate the Owners

The process to find the owner is the most difficult and complex of all. Matmonet’s staff uses vast global databases. Some of them are accessible to the general public, some are accessible – at a high price, and some are only accessible via special permits. As the Jewish people and Israelis in particular are scattered all over the world, it takes global databases, some of which contain billions of pieces of information. In addition, Matmonet’s staff uses all available information at Yad Vashem, some online and some in libraries, to research on victims of the Holocaust.

In addition to the global databases, Matmonet’s staff has to go to many public libraries in the offline (physical) world, such as the National Library, museum libraries, university libraries and libraries at various organizations founded by descendants of various Jewish communities in the diaspora or from specific cities (e.g., The Association of Jews from Vilna and the Vicinity in Israel).

Matmonet’s staff includes expert genealogists who can analyze family trees and pedigrees and deduce the proper relation to the lands’ owners or their heirs.

Misspelled names cause further difficulties in locating the owners. The land registry systems in Israel underwent several comprehensive changes. In the beginning, land registries were kept in Turkish, during the Turkish reign. Misspellings accumulated in the transition to English with the British reign. In the 1930-1940s, they started registering data in Hebrew. This transition resulted in the worst misspellings. In the 1980’s, there was a transition to computerized systems. Misspellings accumulated there as well.

All these things resulted in misspellings that require great expertise and cross-referencing capabilities to identify the relation to the true, original names.

The Process of Contacting the Owners

The next stage is no less difficult than the previous stages. The staff has accurate names, but no idea as to the whereabouts of the persons thus named.  One of the main problems in making the connection is that often our staff will run into a common first and last name, and the staff must tell the right person apart from all other similar names. There is also a language issue, as one Hebrew name can have a few variations in Latin languages and vice versa. We contract the heirs via e-mail, regular mail, phone, all types of social media, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, etc.

Most of the time, the heirs’ representatives’ initial reaction is suspicion. “How could we not have known”, they ask, perhaps feeling there is a catch or a scam to make them part from their money using fibs.

Matmonet makes sure to emphasize no payment or fee are made unless an official confirmation of ownership of the property is obtained, e.g. through the Land Registration Bureau. The fee is only paid at the end the process, and only if the owners or their heirs are registered as the property’s owners or receive a financial consideration due to it. There is no payment in advance or interim payment. Only when the process is completed.

 

The Process of Executing an Agreement with the Owner

After the connection is made, the suspicions are relieved and the parties are willing to move forward, the process of executing an agreement with the located owner or with his or her heirs begins. It is very important that all heirs sign the agreement and be aware of the yields they are to receive. Another option is to appoint one heir as representative for all heirs, after they all give him power of attorney to act on their behalf. It is possible to appoint an attorney who represents the family and all heirs in this manner.

A separate page here presents a template agreement. This is merely a draft. The agreement itself is tailored to each case’s particular circumstances, the findings and specific links between the heirs of any located property.

After the agreement is signed, the heirs are presented with the findings from the location, and the cooperative process toward obtaining the property beings.

The Matmonet Location Fee

Matmonet charges a commission of 30 percent of the located property’s value. On the one hand, heirs may feel this is a steep commission. On the other hand, had it not been for Matmonet’s operations, the heirs would have never learned about the property and receive their share. From the heirs’ perspective, it’s really a windfall. It’s a gift, as the family would not have found out about the property had it not been for Matmonet’s activity, at its sole expense.

There are cases when Matmonet is unable to obtain confirmation of the property’s location and it does not receive anything in return for its initiative, efforts, time, money and labor.

Matmonet’s clear and unequivocal policy is not to charge anything unless all official factors recognize the heirs’ ownership of the property, and hence there are many cases when Matmonet receives no consideration regardless of its extensive labor.

The Location Findings Confirmation Process – Cooperation with the Owners

Due to numerous attempts at various types of forgery, official factors check each case very thoroughly and rigorously, to thwart these attempts. This also makes things difficult for the true heirs, who must prove the relationship between the property and the registered owner in no uncertain terms, and of course, the link between the registered owner and the alleged heirs.

Another difficulty Matmonet’s staff faces is multiple heirs, and very often, there are family disputes that make it very difficult for the entire family to cooperate to obtain the located property.

At this stage, Matmonet’s staff forms a collaboration with the owners’ representatives to locate all documents that will make it possible to prove the link between the land and the located heirs. Matmonet’s staff provides the heirs with all the findings that led them to the conclusion that they are indeed the heirs, and the family’s representatives attempt to find every piece of information, including tax payment notices, to prove the link to the property.

The process to confirm the location findings is vital to convince the authorities of its reliability and of the link between the heirs and the property.

The Authorities’ Approval Process

This is the hardest part, as there are many attempted forgeries, as noted. Matmonet’s staff does everything it can with help from Matmonet’s legal advisors and the heirs using everything they gathered to convince the authorities that the title to the land is authentic.

In some cases, we must appeal to the court to order the Land Registration Bureau to accept the location’s findings and confirm the title the property. This can take some time, but at the end, the registration is plain and clear, as the Land Registration Bureau has to obey the court.

 

The Sale Process

In most cases, including due to multiple heirs and sometimes due to family disputes, but certainly not only because of these issues, all involved parties wish to sell the property and split the proceeds.

Matmonet has ties with entrepreneurs and investors who may be interested in buying the property if the heirs will be interested in selling the land through Matmonet.

In some cases, an option agreement is entered into at the start of the process, stipulating the property’s price and payment terms, and the suspending term is fulfilled once the property is registered to the heirs’ name and they are able to sell it.