Dr. Ran Movshovits & Co., Law Office

Dr. Ran Movshovits & Co., Law Office, is a boutique law firm that focuses on practicing inheritance, wills, and family gifts laws. Among others, the firm counsels on matters relating to will protection, will objections, disqualifying wills, revoking wills, protecting gift agreements, cancelling gifts, and guardianship disputes that are, in fact, early estate disputes. Additionally, the firm handles the prevention of obtaining estate or family property, including claims to revoke a gift or claims against family members who take care of an elderly person, isolate them, and exploit their vulnerability to take hold of their money and property.
The firm was established in 2003 by Dr. and Adv. Ran Movshovits (JSD), a member of the Bar Association’s Inheritance Committee, who lectures on evidentiary law before expert witnesses of the court and the writer of “Inheritance Disputes, in Practice”, which is a practical guide for jurists and lawyers.

Exceptional Knowledge and Experience in the Field of Wills and Inheritance

Over the years, the firm has gained exceptional knowledge and experience in the specific field of inheritance, wills, and gifts, and has set legal precedents and achievements that are currently taught in law schools, some of which were set by the Supreme Court. The firm was endowed with quality, professional excellence, and exceptional out of the box thinking, and is both loyal and available to its clients, especially during difficult times and through to the completion of the legal process, while obtaining their desired results.

Strategic Capabilities to Quickly Resolve Inheritance Disputes

Along with its uncompromising determination for its clients, while conducting a vigorous fight on their behalf in all courts of law, the firm was endowed with such high credibility and transparency that it sometimes suggests its clients to follow the path of compromise – in cases the other party has expressed their willingness to do so. In these cases, compromise means tremendous time and money savings for all parties involved.

Rulings and Precedents

Over the years, the firm gained its reputation as being creative and innovative, presenting the court with unique and precedent setting claims and advancing the Israeli legal discussion according to the moral values of human dignity and respect of the deceased.
The following is a short review of such cases:

A body guardian can’t accept favors from the ones he oversees – A verdict from the Tel Aviv District Court, given on an appeal to objecting a will and represented by Adv. Movshovits. This verdict ruled against an apartment that was given as a gift, and set the precedent, that a guardian must not accept a gift from the ones he oversees and that this is, in fact, grounds for cancelling such gifts.

The victim was subjected to undue influence, and this is grounds for revoking a will – A unique verdict in which the Tel Aviv District Court overruled the decision of the Tel Aviv Family Court and determined that the deceased was subjected to undue influence, and that this is grounds to revoking the will. The verdict clearly showed that Adv. Movshovits proved the influence was so significant that the court decided there is no need to use the “Marom” section, which allows proof of undue influence based on circumstantial tests.

An autistic soldier was drafted for military academic studies – A precedent setting verdict in which the firm represented a young man who was diagnosed with ASD (Autistic Syndrome Disorder) as a child and wished to enlist to the IDF, despite the army’s refusal. In this case, Adv. Movshovits petitioned the High Court of Justice, and following his petition, the young man was accepted into the academic reserve and enrolled to officers’ training, with the IDF billed for all legal expenses.

Interpretation of the question “Who is a Jew” by virtue of the Law of Return – Adv. Movshovits petitioned the High Court of Justice in the Zavidovsky case, and a precedent was ruled which changed the interpretation of the provision of Section 4 of the Law of Return, which handles the issue of “who is a Jew”. The petition actively stopped the deportation of a Jewish woman, who was the granddaughter of a holocaust survivor.

Expanding jurisdiction on “Lashon Hara” cases (defamation and/or slander) – In a claim filed by the firm to the High Court on behalf of comedian Gil Kopatz against “Der Spiegel” German magazine, the Israeli court’s international jurisdiction was expanded to lashon hara offenses concerning the holocaust and nazis, even if those offenses were committed abroad.

The brother that tried to take hold of his late mother’s home – In this case, one sibling tried to take sole possession over his late mother’s home. The dispute between the siblings lasted for about 7 years, until the firm entered the ring – within just two hearings, and following the court’s recommendation, the rebellious brother was forced to agree to the division of the asset according to his late mother’s wishes, and thus, his siblings were granted a part of their mother’s inheritance.

The lost will – A case in which the firm represented eight brothers that have been disowned from their mother’s will, who left her estate to only 2 children out of 10. The verdict determined that the late mother forgot her will, making it a “lost will”. And, since such ruling doesn’t revoke the will itself, the court “filled in the blanks” of the will in such a way that the terms that disowned 8 of the siblings, the firm’s clients, were revoked. To convince the court, the firm left no stone unturned and located no less than 16 foreign witnesses, unrelated to the family, who testified to the mother’s last wishes when she claimed she has “10 children – 10 heirs”.

A handwritten note is not a will – A case in which the firm wished to cancel a will that was handwritten on a note. The court justified the claim and revoked the will. In this context, the court reviewed the meaning of the phrase “testamentary intent” and clarified the differences enabling a clear separation between a mere instruction document and an instruction document that may be considered as an actual will.

A stepbrother tried to take hold of an apartment his sister received when she was 6 years old – A case in which the firm represented a woman whose brother asked to take hold of an apartment she was given as a child, during her parents nasty divorce dispute. The prosecution led to her brother accidentally admitting to his sister’s ownership rights in the attempt to take hold of the asset. When the brother understood the meaning of the version he resented to the court, he had to settle and buy his sister’s rights to the apartment, at market prices.