Who inherited the deceased, his children or the public figure?
In many movies, we encounter the situation of a family member passing away peacefully. In those movies, it is customary to show the deceased as a happy person surrounded by his extended family.
In some cases, those films have a common denominator that is sometimes only revealed after death.
So it turns out that the family is probably not so happy after the death of the deceased, especially when a dispute over the inheritance begins.
In the case before us, reality surpasses all imagination and the dispute over The inheritance It reached the corridors of the Family Court. In this procedure, the court is required to decide the question of who the inheritance belongs to, the children of the deceased or to whom it was known to the public for years.
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This is a procedure. Tel Aviv 8157-01-13 S. and others N S. and others– Request for an inheritance order.
The circumstances of the case that led to the request for an inheritance order
The applicant, divorced and the mother of one child, was the deceased’s partner between the years 2009-2011, when he died.
They maintained a joint household, presented themselves in public as a couple.
They spent holidays together with their extended family, bought a car together, and even saved money together. In addition, she claimed that the deceased renovated his apartment as part of his intention to marry her.
The applicant submitted an application for Order Inheritance And to recognize her as he is known in public, which gives her the right to be his heir by law, along with his children.
The meaning of such a recognition is that the deceased’s inheritance will be divided between her and his children.
The deceased himself is also divorced, and has two children from a previous marriage. Those who opposed the inheritance order were, as mentioned, his biological children.
According to the children, their deceased father and the applicant were not Known in public Rather, they only had sexual relations. According to them, the applicant is a divorcee, and their father only assisted her in the legal proceedings.
They claim that they never presented themselves to everyone as a couple.
Contrary to the applicant’s claim, her children claimed that they did not maintain a joint household at all, but rather lived in each other’s apartment from time to time and nothing more.
In addition, the applicant was never registered as a beneficiary in the deceased’s pension fund, which only indicates that they were not known to the public at all.
The children also claimed that the applicant did not bring her parents to testify to strengthen her version of “shared meals on holidays” and her son to shed light on the relationship between her and their father.
How did the court decide?
The court should have decided whether the circumstances alleged by the applicant are consistent with the provisions of Section 55 of the Inheritance Law, which states:
“A man and a woman who live a family life in a common household but are not married to each other, and one of them dies and at the time of his death neither of them was married to another person, the surviving spouse is considered as if the testator had ordered him to receive what the surviving spouse would have inherited by law if they had been married to each other, and this is when there is no other provision, express or implied, in the will left by the testator.“.
The rule in inheritance law is that if the deceased did not write Will, He will be inherited by his legal wife and his children.
Section 55 makes an exception to the rule, and states that even someone who has a family life and a shared household with the deceased and is not married to him will legally inherit from him. However, the burden of proving the conditions of section 55 lies with the one who claims it.
The verdict
Home Family Law The court accepted the applicant’s argument. The court determined that the parties had a joint household, and even contrary to the children’s version, the applicant presented confirmation Divorce As of the date of the deceased’s death.
It was determined that although the applicant and the deceased did not live together in the same apartment, they lived with each other every day, as the court saw it:
“The fact that the applicant divided her time between the deceased’s house and her own does not negate the cohabitation. In other words, even if it is a question of dividing the residence on an intermittent basis, the couple still met the conditions of the cohabitation component. With regard to the nights when they slept separately, the deceased would drive the applicant to work, and even the opponents admit that this means that an additional component of family life exists in a shared household.“.
In addition, the court determined that the applicant proved the existence of marital relations with the deceased, which constitutes an additional element in proving the existence of a household and a common life.
The court accepted the applicant’s version that the deceased renovated his apartment so that they could move into one apartment together, and even in order to marry the applicant at a certain point.
The verdict reads: “There are no divisions because the parties’ intention was to institutionalize the relationship, including holding a wedding and a kiddushin. I was convinced that the deceased renovated the house as part of the preparations for the wedding and the applicant’s permanent move to the house.“.
The meaning of the decision is that the applicant will inherit the deceased by law together with his children, in the sense that the inheritance will be divided equally between them.
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