Court Rejects Daughter's Bid to Inherit Farm Amid Will Drafting Controversy

A family court in Kiryat Gat has dismissed a daughter's attempt to take control of her deceased mother's agricultural estate, ruling that she and a brother were unduly involved in drafting the will that favored her. Judge Diana Passo-Vago determined that the siblings' initial signatures, affirming the will and transferring rights to the daughter, were based on a misrepresentation and consequently voided the probate order.

The legal dispute arose from a severe conflict among the six children of a deceased couple over rights to their farm in a moshav. The mother left two wills: one from 2010 leaving all property to a son, and a later one from February 2013 granting the farm to the daughter while reserving residency rights for two sons. After the mother's death in 2018, five siblings initially agreed to the later will.

However, a son who felt disadvantaged by the first will filed a lawsuit to invalidate the second, alleging that the daughter and another brother had drafted its inheritance clauses themselves and presented them to the lawyer without his full knowledge. The daughter countered that her mother was competent and the siblings signed willingly. Under questioning, she admitted to writing parts of the draft, contradicting her earlier denial of any involvement.

Judge Passo-Vago rejected the defendants' accounts, concluding that the daughter and brother were fully complicit in drafting the will. The court found that the daughter dictated significant portions of the draft, not merely technical details, but substantive inheritance and farm management instructions. The judge emphasized that the law views a beneficiary's involvement in drafting a will very seriously, and in this case, the flaw invalidated the entire document.

The court also ruled that the siblings' initial agreement was based on a false premise that the will was valid, as they were unaware of the daughter's and brother's involvement in its preparation. The probate order was definitively canceled, the daughter's eviction claims against her siblings were rejected, and she was ordered to pay 59,000 shekels in legal costs to her siblings. The fate of the earlier 2010 will remains undecided.