A family court in Jerusalem recently invalidated a declaration signed by a woman in which she agreed to give up her share of the couple’s penthouse after her husband discovered she had an affair.
The judge ruled that the document had been signed under improper coercion and therefore had no legal validity.
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Caught cheating, wife signed away $1.5M penthouse to win him back
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The apartment was purchased about a decade ago and is estimated to be worth roughly 5.5 million shekels, about $1.5 million. The husband discovered the affair about a year after the purchase, and the woman signed the declaration shortly afterward. Four years later, the husband left the home and the couple separated permanently.
In a lawsuit filed in July 2023, the husband asked the court to recognize him as the sole owner of the property based on the declaration and to order his former wife removed from the apartment.
The woman, represented by attorneys Sabrina Ben Haim and Miriam Zakin, argued that she had been forced to sign the document due to pressure and coercion from her husband after he expelled her from the home and separated her from their children.
She said she signed the document while in a severe emotional state, suffering from anxiety and nightmares and being treated with the anti-anxiety medication Clonex. She also stated that she does not speak Hebrew well and therefore did not fully understand the contents of the agreement.
The judge first determined, not without hesitation, that the waiver document effectively constituted a marital property agreement because it dealt primarily with the couple’s home, which holds special status in marital property law.
However, such agreements require formal approval by a court, which in this case had never been obtained.
Judge: waiver was signed under improper pressure
In her ruling, Judge Rivi Lev Ohayon wrote that the woman’s signature had been obtained under improper coercion and therefore lacked legal validity.
“The woman agreed to waive her rights in the apartment for the sake of restoring peace in the home,” the judge wrote. “But there is no indication that she intended to relinquish those rights in the event of divorce.”
The judge also accused the husband of exploiting the distress of the mother of his children.
She wrote that he likely exerted immoral pressure on her, noting that it required little imagination to understand that the woman was in a vulnerable emotional state after being caught in the affair and agreed to waive her rights in order for her husband to take her back.
Attorney Daniel SwissaThe court found that the husband forced his wife to give up her rights while she was outside the home and separated from her children, whom she had not seen for several days.
The judge said it was unreasonable to expect the woman to initiate divorce proceedings at that stage when her goal was reconciliation and saving the marriage.
Property to be sold and proceeds divided
Under those circumstances, the judge ruled that the declaration had been forced upon the woman and must therefore be annulled.
The court determined that the penthouse belongs to both parties. It ordered that the property be sold and the proceeds divided equally between them after the dissolution of joint ownership.
The sale process must be completed within three months of the ruling.