When I am abroad I prefer to look for the places where the locals go out over the tourist spots. The local, neighborhood restaurant is always preferable to me over a restaurant in the city center cooking international food and offering generic dishes such as pizza, pasta or hamburgers. There is something in it of learning and getting to know the local culture, the local human character. The local soup is not always to the Israeli palate, and if the food is kosher, then in most neighborhood restaurants it will be hard to find a dish we can order, although after several visits to the same neighborhood restaurant, when I asked them to prepare the fish in aluminum foil on the grill for a client who had come with me, they agreed.
I met Assaf in just such a neighborhood restaurant in a European capital I visit regularly. He was trying to explain the rules of kashrut to the local waiter, and I stepped in to help him when I saw that the waiter did not really understand what he was asking for.
A conversation developed in Hebrew. When Assaf realized that I am a lawyer by profession, he began to pour out his frustration with the local bureaucratic system. A few days earlier he had bought an apartment, and he could not manage to complete the required bureaucratic procedures. Each time he was asked for another or a different document, and every day he wasted hours in queues at city hall or the tax authorities, with nobody managing to understand what he was asking for or needed, and without getting what he required. Assaf had turned down the broker's offer to be accompanied through the process by a local lawyer, and certainly had not consulted an Israeli lawyer before carrying out the transaction.
“I don't understand, in Israel I went to the municipality and after two hours I came out with a certificate for the land registry, from the Tax Authority website I printed the confirmation of payment of purchase tax, and from there, with the papers my lawyer gave me, I went to the land registry (Tabu), filed the file, and within 24 hours I got an email that the apartment was registered in my name,” he said.
“True,” I replied, “but Athens is not like Modi'in or Bucharest or Porto. Every country and every city has its own way of running bureaucracy, and if you don't know it, don't understand it or don't get help from someone who does, then it is frustrating.”
“If the locals can do it themselves, there is no reason I can't do it myself too,” he said.
“And then you sit here frustrated, angry and not understanding what isn't working,” I replied. “Are your working days not worth money? For another few hundred euros, wouldn't it have been worth saving the cost of living here and the loss of income from your business or job back home?” I asked.
Every country has its own laws. Every country has its own requirements, and sometimes each local authority sets its own requirements as well. If you do not know what the requirements are or how to obtain the required documents, you may waste precious time and a lot of money for nothing, and experience frustration.
For example, in most European countries the property owner is required to be registered as a taxpayer with the tax authority; to register as a taxpayer one has to fill in forms (which will usually be in the local language), and sometimes there are additional requirements (in Romania you are required to provide the name and address of a local person who will receive mail for you; in Bulgaria it is enough to give your address in Israel).
An Israeli lawyer who accompanies the buyer through the purchase process (no matter which country) knows and is familiar with the required requirements and documents, and can presumably also obtain everything required and do so professionally and efficiently, compared with the buyer himself.
My recommendation - do not buy or sell a property in a foreign country without professional guidance!!!
Stories are based on real situations, with identifying details changed. Not legal advice.
Translated from the Hebrew original. עברית