Evicting a tenant who paid key money is known in legal language as eviction of a protected tenant. The process is anchored in the Tenant Protection Law, which imposes rights and duties on the owner of the apartment and on the tenant holding the property alike.
In the 1960s, many protected leases were signed. The deal gave the protected tenant the right to live in the property until his death and required him to pay a low monthly rent.
Key money contracts, which create a statutory protected tenancy, are almost never signed today, but according to the Ministry of Finance there are still about twenty thousand apartments occupied by protected tenants, most of them in the centers of large cities and in older neighborhoods.
With demolition-and-rebuild and urban renewal projects on the rise, the question keeps coming up: what is the lawful way to evict a protected tenant?
In this article, we will cover the key terms, the legal grounds that allow the removal of a protected tenant from a property, and the steps an owner must take when evicting one.
Evicting a protected tenant – terms worth knowing
Key money
Key money housing was common during the Mandate period, when there was pressure to control housing prices in the country. After the state was founded, the authorities kept encouraging key money housing to put a roof over the heads of the tens of thousands of immigrants who arrived and could not afford to buy an apartment at full price.
The Tenant Protection Law anchors the rights and duties of the tenant and the property owner. On signing the contract, the tenant pays between thirty and sixty percent of the property’s value and from then on pays a sharply reduced rent.
The tenant enjoys the right to live in the property until the end of his days and, under certain conditions, can even pass his rights in the property to family members.
Protected tenant
A protected tenant is a tenant who lives in a property after paying key money for it, or any tenant who moved into a rental property before 1940.
Evicting a protected tenant – why and how a protected tenant can be removed from the property
The key money law sets out several grounds on which a protected tenant can be removed from the property.
First ground for evicting a protected tenant: the tenant does not pay the rent he owes.
Second ground: the tenant maliciously causes significant damage to the apartment.
Third ground: the protected tenant used the property unlawfully, for example by opening a business in it or renting it out.
Fourth ground: the tenant deliberately and repeatedly disturbs and harasses the neighbors.
Another ground: the protected property belongs to the state or a local authority, and the property is needed for an essential public purpose.
And another: the property owner wants to demolish the protected property and build a new building in its place, and has already received the required building permit. In that case the owner may evict the tenant, but he must provide alternative housing or fair monetary compensation.
How is a protected tenant actually evicted?
Eviction of a protected tenant can be carried out only through a special tribunal, the Tenancy Court, and only on the grounds listed in the law. It also matters whether the eviction rests on a fundamental breach by the tenant or on a vital public need such as urban renewal.
These proceedings run differently from evictions of ordinary tenants and squatters. Ordinary eviction claims are heard in a Magistrates’ Court or the Family Court, while a claim to evict a protected tenant is heard in a special forum, the Tenancy Court, whose jurisdiction parallels that of the Magistrates’ Court.
If the claim to evict the protected tenant is filed in any other court, it may be dismissed outright for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, since the Tenancy Court alone has exclusive jurisdiction over claims of this type.
A protected tenant holding rights in a commercial property has the same rights as a protected tenant in a residential home, and the same grounds for eviction apply to both.
Like any other judgment, a ruling ordering the eviction of a protected tenant can be appealed.
The appeal must be filed within 60 days of the judgment, to the district court in whose jurisdiction the Tenancy Court issued the eviction order.
If the protected tenant refuses to comply with a Tenancy Court ruling ordering him to vacate the property, the owner can take further steps to enforce the eviction of the protected tenant through the Enforcement and Collection Authority.
Worth knowing:
A claim to evict a protected tenant does not have to be handled by a key money lawyer from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or anywhere else. Any property owner can run the case alone, but it is worth knowing that evicting a protected tenant is a complicated process, because the law hands the tenant a long list of rights.
To give the claim its best chance, it pays to consult a lawyer who focuses on key money law and knows the statutes and case law in the field, including everything that touches on evicting protected tenants.
The bottom line: a protected tenant can be evicted, but you need to know the lawful way to do it.
The law names the grounds on which a protected tenant may be evicted. Before starting the process, learn those grounds and the legal route that actually gets a protected tenant out of the property.
