Justice Ministry Urges Tax Authority to Publish Real Estate Deals Faster

A standards committee at Israel’s Council of Appraisers, operating under the Justice Ministry, has told senior officials at the Tax Authority that delays in publishing real estate transactions are harming the market. In a recent letter, the committee said the authority sometimes holds back deal data for months after signing, even though reporting is now digital and participants submit transactions shortly after completion. The committee argues that slow publication creates uncertainty and prevents market players from spotting trends quickly. It wants deals posted on the real estate information site before they finish tax review.

The real estate information website is the only official public source for Israeli property transactions, and it is widely used by developers, appraisers, brokers, banks, journalists, and data companies such as Madlan and Yad2. The site is based on the Real Estate Taxation Law, which allows the Tax Authority to maintain a public database as long as it excludes identifying details. Since 2010, after a Jerusalem District Court petition by Dr. Efrat Tolkovsky and Prof. Danny Ben-Shahar, the public has been able to use the database to estimate home values by checking nearby sales.

According to committee chairman Eyal Yitzhaki, publication still waits for the inspector’s review, a process that can legally take up to eight months. In his letter to Tax Authority director Shai Aharonovitch, senior real estate tax official Yaniv Cohen, and chief appraiser Shuki Shertski, he proposed that transaction data be transferred immediately from the parties’ filings to the website, with unapproved deals marked as based on the parties’ declaration.

The article also notes longstanding criticism of the site itself, including errors in reported transactions, occasional crashes, an outdated interface, a limit of 150 results per search, and the need to re-enter a code for each query. A State Comptroller report in October 2023 found extensive missing and incorrect data, including hundreds of thousands of wrong entries on construction year, number of floors, and apartment size. The committee says faster publication would improve market efficiency, strengthen appraisers’ work, help appeals, and deter false reporting. The Tax Authority said it has received the request and is reviewing it.