One of the courses I would recommend to law faculties and law students is a course in NLP or any course that provides basic therapeutic knowledge, since a considerable part of the work often focuses on dealing with the mental side of clients. Quite often I feel like a psychologist, counselor or couples therapist to clients.
Shosh and Haim are a retired couple who bought an apartment abroad a few years ago. A friend recommended to them a local broker who showed them an apartment and persuaded them to buy it, renovate it and rent it out. The broker would take care of everything required for them and they would earn a monthly yield. Since this was the country where Shosh was born, they were truly happy to reconnect with the country and to buy a property there that would also stay for the children and grandchildren, and would also bring in additional income.
When they came to me about two years ago they were in distress, which affected their marriage. The broker turned out to be an unreliable figure who does not know how to manage the property properly and, above all, uses the couple as a money-squeezing machine. He charged them a premium for every action, failed to manage tenants, and every few months the tenant “ran away” and left debts behind, which Haim would cover; for every new tenant he would charge a tenant-finding commission and a payment for the new lease (and at times 2-3 tenants would change in a year).
Through the local office we found them a management company we can vouch for, and when we informed the broker, a saga of threats and financial demands began. After great efforts, including my threats of shaming and lawsuits, we managed to move them to another management company. At the same time they asked us to find them a buyer. Shosh was fed up with the expenses and the pressure. She wants to live without stress in retirement, she said.
About 3 months ago the local partner announced that a buyer had been found for the couple's apartment, for a sum lower than the purchase price plus renovation. Shosh immediately announced that the apartment had to be sold. Haim explained that this meant a financial loss, that he was not willing to lose money, and suggested continuing to look for a buyer who would be willing to pay the price they were asking. This is where I entered the picture and held a long conversation with Shosh and Haim. A conversation that goes beyond the legal field and deals more with money matters and matters between the two of them. I explained to Haim that investments do not always work out, and that sometimes one also loses on investments. In the end the couple decided to sell the apartment despite the loss it caused them.
About a month ago, Haim came to my office and wanted to tell me that he had bought a replacement apartment in a project by an Israeli developer in the same country, and asked that we carry out the checks for him and conduct the negotiation with the developer's lawyer. I raised an eyebrow, and asked whether Shosh had agreed to the purchase. Haim did not answer. The next day I summoned both of them (separately) to my office. Haim was surprised to find Shosh in my office. For more than two hours we held a conversation in which, in part, voices were raised and even tears were shed. Shosh was not willing to hear under any circumstances about buying another apartment. She spoke to Haim in harsh words and described his act as a betrayal. Stories and insults from the past surfaced. It took skills and abilities on my part to calm things down, to explain to Shosh that her husband was doing this with good intentions, in order to try to give them a positive experience of the country where she was born, to try to atone for the mistake he made in choosing the broker and the first apartment. On the other hand, I had to make Haim see his mistake in trying to buy an apartment “behind Shosh's back,” and in hiding such a move from her after more than 40 years of marriage.
The two left the meeting agreeing to continue the purchase process, and went straight to the restaurant where my secretary had booked them a table during the meeting.
Stories are based on real situations, with identifying details changed. Not legal advice.
Translated from the Hebrew original. עברית