Dozens Who Bought Land in Pi Glilot Say Part of It Had Been Expropriated
Progress in the planning of the “Pi Glilot” complex exposed a serious Land Registry failure, according to 80 rights holders in the site, who are suing the Tel Aviv Land Registry for 11.9 million shekels. The plaintiffs say they relied on registry extracts that did not reflect an expropriation of 17.25% of the land for the state, and that this was a “serious, ongoing and unreasonable” failure by the Land Registry.
The rights holders say the expropriation was omitted from the registration for 28 years, creating a misleading registry record for the public and for buyers of rights. They say the damage was caused by paying a high price relative to the land’s actual rights, and because most of them have no ability to realize even one housing unit because of the reduction in the land area. The plaintiffs are asking that the Land Registry be ordered to compensate them for the economic and property damage caused to them.
In the lawsuit, filed last week through attorneys Aviad Shoob, Alon Krivitski and Roni Maman of Shoob & Co. in the Tel Aviv District Court, it says the case concerns a parcel of 102,321 square meters that was expropriated in 1966. The expropriation was published in the official gazette but was omitted from the land registry until 2019, when an expropriation notice was finally registered again, exposing the gap between the true rights situation and the registry presentation relied upon by buyers.
According to the plaintiffs, the failure became especially clear with the advancement of planning procedures these days under the Vatilmal, in which the expropriated land was not taken into account in favor of the private owners. The plaintiffs purchased rights in the complex between 1991 and 2019, when the expropriation notice was registered. The lawsuit states that, “as a result of the failure, the plaintiffs relied on an incorrect land registry and did not know that part of the rights shown there were no longer part of the owners’ rights, and accordingly paid consideration that also reflected land that had long since been expropriated.”
In December 2025, the deposit of the South Glilot plan applying to the complex was published to the public, and it emerged that within the allocation and balancing framework, the expropriated area was taken into account as an area conferring rights on the state or on someone who had purchased rights from it, and not on the plaintiffs. This reduction meant that their rights do not grant most of the plaintiffs entitlement to even one apartment.
The damage, according to the plaintiffs’ appraiser, is estimated at 6,500 shekels per square meter for land that should not have been purchased. Alternatively, the plaintiffs are asking that the damage be calculated based on the amount each one paid, minus 17.25% of the area that was expropriated and could not have been purchased at all.
It is further argued that the failure amounts to “serious negligence, administrative failure and breach of statutory duties,” given the Land Registry’s role in ensuring that the register accurately reflects the state of rights in real estate. The plaintiffs say this is a “fundamental failure in the functioning of the registry.”
The Tel Aviv Civil District Attorney’s Office, which represents the Land Registrar, responded: “We have received the lawsuit, and we are studying it.”
