ISRAEL Law and Practice Contributed by: Yaron Mehulal, Nataly Davidai and Shalom Hershkovitz, FISCHER (FBC & Co.)
Upon receiving a guardianship request, the court will examine whether a durable power of attorney, instruc - tions for the appointment of a guardian or any other expression of wish have been prepared or registered by the intended ward in any registry. If a durable power of attorney has been granted, then consent is needed from the appointed person for this appointment, and if there are instructions for the appointment of a guard - ian, or any other document expressing a relevant wish, the guardian mentioned in those documents should be included in the process as well. As of the date of the appointment, the guardian is subject to the Administrator General’s supervision. However, each of the following requires prior approval of the competent court: • the sale, transfer or charge of a real estate prop - erty; • the rental of a real property subject to the Tenant Protection Laws; • any act, the validity of which is conditioned upon registration in a register kept by law; • making non-customary gifts; • provision of a guarantee; • any act that imposes a liability on the ward, such as a loan, a pledge or a guarantee; • mode of investment of ward’s funds exceeding ILS500,000; and • collection of the guardian’s remuneration. 8.3 Elder Law The ageing of the Israeli population was defined as a national, social and financial challenge by the Israeli government as far back as 2015. As part of addressing the challenge, the Israeli gov - ernment has enforced a gradual mandatory pension provision (which includes a severance pay compo - nent), to be paid by all employers and employees from their monthly salaries. Currently, the mandatory contri - bution is 6% by employees and 12.5% by employers; however, it is also customary for employers to offer study fund savings to their employees. In addition, the Israeli government issues each Israeli resident who has reached retirement age (currently, 63 for women (gradually rising to 65) and 67 for men, with
the exception of bereaved parents for whom the retire - ment age can be voluntarily and unilaterally extended to 70 for women and 72 for men) senior citizen sta - tus and a certificate granting discounts in relation to public transportation, museums and cultural centres, public parks, bank fees, municipal property taxes (up to a 25% discount, and subject to certain conditions) and other benefits. In parallel, in order to ensure that every elderly person shall receive at least a minimum level of financial sup - port during their later years, the National Insurance Agency provides, under certain conditions, an old age pension annuity, welfare annuity and income annuity. Furthermore, Israeli tax laws provide, to elderly or retired people, reduced income tax rates for certain amounts of income from designated sources such as financial income, pension income and more. 9. Planning for Non-Traditional Families 9.1 Children Children born out of wedlock, legally adopted chil - dren and legally recognised surrogate children are all considered as legal issue of the deceased parent and grandparent, and are thus eligible to inherit, subject to the terms and conditions of the Inheritance Law, 5725-1965. In fact, a child born up to 300 days after the deceased has died is eligible to inherit, including if born out of wedlock, adopted, surrogate or otherwise. It must be noted, however, that under Jewish law, which to a large extent controls legal marriages of Jewish people in Israel, as it is adopted by the coun - try’s civil law, a child born out of a married Jewish woman’s adultery, although legally considered the child of its biological father (and thus entitled to inherit from him), will be defined as a “mamzer”, meaning the child and their issue (up to ten generations onward) will not be able to legally marry in Israel. Because of these severe impediments, Israeli courts have taken the position that the paternity of a child born out of marriage cannot be easily legally challenged, to avoid creating a body of evidence that might be used to declare the child a mamzer.
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