## Facts

- A mother had a close relationship with her adult daughter and frequently stayed at the daughter’s home while helping with household work.
- The daughter and her husband sought to buy a larger apartment but lacked sufficient funds.
- The mother offered to sell her own apartment and contribute the proceeds to the purchase of a larger apartment for the couple, on the condition that she could live in the new apartment for the rest of her life.
- The couple accepted, used the mother’s funds toward the purchase, and the mother had her own room in the new apartment.
- Years later, the daughter died of cancer, and relations between the mother and son-in-law deteriorated.
- The son-in-law took actions that made living in the apartment practically impossible for the mother, including locking the bathroom and blocking access to the kitchen.
- The mother left the apartment and sued the son-in-law and the daughter’s estate to recover the money she contributed.

## Issues

1. Whether the mother’s transfer of funds was an irrevocable gift or a conditional family arrangement tied to a promised life residence.
2. Whether, if restitution was due, the recovery should be reduced by the rental value of the mother’s period of occupancy.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court rejected the son-in-law’s position that the mother’s contribution was a purely irrevocable gift.
- The Court affirmed the mother’s entitlement to substantial restitution based on the collapse of the life-residence arrangement.
- The Court modified the trial court’s approach to offsetting the mother’s award by “rent” for the period she lived in the apartment, though the publicly available summary does not specify the exact recalculation.

## Legal Principles

- Courts may treat intra-family transfers as legally consequential arrangements when the transfer is made in reliance on a promised long-term housing right, rather than as a bare gift.
- When a recipient retains the benefit of another’s contribution after frustrating the arrangement that induced the transfer, restitution may be required to prevent unjust enrichment.
- A set-off for use of property must reflect the true character of the parties’ arrangement; occupancy pursuant to a bargained-for or reliance-based life-residence expectation is not necessarily equivalent to a standard landlord-tenant relationship.
- Post-transaction conduct that effectively excludes the contributor from the promised residence can justify restitutionary adjustment.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court treated the mother’s funding of the apartment purchase as a reliance-based arrangement tied to a promised life residence, not an unconditional gift, and granted restitution while adjusting the lower court’s rent-offset methodology to better reflect the nature of the transaction.


Berkovitz v. Klemar, CA 495/80, 36(4) PD 57 (Isr. 1982)