I love the hours of sunset on Friday afternoon. There is a feeling that the world has stopped and everyone is gathering to sit with family. I'm enjoying a cup of coffee and the weekend newspaper when a WhatsApp message from an unidentified number pops up on my iPhone screen. I need your help, I'm in Bucharest and we're stuck...
I don't recognize the number and I hope everything's okay, I replied and went on, but I suggest we talk Sunday morning, because I assume this isn't about you being arrested right now and needing to be released on bail. I smirked to myself when I finished writing the reply.
And he insisted on calling and explaining... and I agreed, and was angry at myself for being dragged into working during the time of the week I love most.
The phone rang with the number I didn't know, but as soon as I answered I recognized the voice on the other side.
“We finally found a buyer for the plot,” he said excitedly.
I've known Moshe for more than a decade. I know the plot in question well. I offered it more than once to clients, tried to help and to interest brokers. We also once or twice conducted negotiations for a sale that blew up.
“Well, congratulations. And what guarantees that this time it will end in a sale contract?” I asked.
“I have a good feeling about him. I was taught to strike while the iron is hot. This is a Turkish buyer who came to me through a broker, and I want to sign a memorandum of understanding immediately - can you prepare a version for us to sign?”
Yes, you're right, strike while the iron is hot... send me the passports, and within an hour you'll have a document ready at my law office in Bucharest.
I'll send you an address to come to and one of the lawyers will have you sign.
Two days later he came to my office in Israel for a meeting. It turned out the buyer had a local lawyer and the signing had not yet taken place. We immediately held a phone call with her, and during it I also sent her documents.
About two months of back and forth and all kinds of excuses from the lawyer, until one day I told Moshe in a conversation that they were just stalling, telling stories and presenting unreasonable demands.
We consulted and that same day informed the potential buyer that if an agreement was not signed by the end of the week, we would take the plot off the shelf on the stated terms.
The deal was not signed, but I decided to take on this plot as a project with the local team. We prepared sketches to divide the plot into lots of 500 square meters in line with the requirements of the local authority, left an area for an access road, and began a campaign to sell the lots for self-build.
It was a slow process that lasted almost a year, but in the end we managed to sell the lots. In the end, despite the expenses involved, Moshe and his partners came out with a profit from the deal (even relative to the last potential buyer's offer), since the plot had been bought more than a decade earlier at a relatively low price, and the development in the area together with rising prices turned the project into a worthwhile deal.
Stories are based on real situations, with identifying details changed. Not legal advice.
Translated from the Hebrew original. עברית