One Israeli law sets a floor under your lease, and the landlord cannot sign it away. It is the 2017 Fair Rental amendment to the Rental and Loan Law (5731-1971), section 25alef onward, and it sits above your contract: the parties cannot override it to your disadvantage. It applies to residential leases within the chapter’s statutory scope. Short leases of up to three months without an extension option, certain leases over ten years, and rents above an annually indexed ceiling are among the exceptions. So if your lease looks tilted against you and the landlord treats its wording as the last word, most of the clauses tenants ask about (the deposit size, who pays for the boiler, how fast a leak must be fixed) are already written there in your favor.

Four protections matter most. (1) The apartment must arrive fit to live in: drainage, electricity, light and ventilation, drinking water, a wall between the toilet and the rooms, and no unreasonable safety or health hazard (section 25vav). (2) Your total cash-type security is capped at the lower of one-third of the rent for the whole term or three months’ rent (section 25yod). On a 12-month lease that is always three months. At the CBS national average rent of NIS 4,879 a month (Q2 2025) the cap is NIS 14,637, so a landlord asking five months (NIS 24,395) is NIS 9,758 over the line. (3) The landlord cannot bill you for building insurance, for buying or upgrading fixed equipment, or for a broker the landlord hired (section 25tet). (4) Once the landlord receives a demand, a defect within the landlord’s repair duty must be fixed within a reasonable time: ordinarily no later than 30 days, or within 3 days if it prevents reasonable residence (section 25het). Send the demand in writing so you can prove receipt. If the landlord fails to repair as required, section 9 permits recovery of reasonable repair costs after appropriate notice, or a proportional rent reduction while the defect remains. A repair too urgent to wait has a separate exception to the notice process. Enforcement is private: small claims court (ceiling NIS 39,900, filing fee 1% with a NIS 50 floor, lawyers generally not allowed); send a written demand first. This page walks the law itself, section by section, so you can point to the exact rule when a landlord pushes back.

The one law that overrides your lease

The protections come from a 2017 amendment (Amendment No. 2) to the Rental and Loan Law, 5731-1971. It added a residential-lease chapter, sections 25alef to 25tet-vav. People call it the Fair Rental Law. It has applied to leases since 2017.

The chapter has specific exceptions. It excludes hotel or holiday accommodation, certain institutional residences and sheltered housing, dormitories, and protected tenancy. It also excludes leases of up to three months with no extension option, leases over ten years with no earlier landlord termination option, and rents above the annually indexed statutory ceiling. Public or subsidized housing is not a blanket exclusion in this list; other housing laws may also apply. Leases between statutory relatives have a separate exception to the rule against reducing the listed protections.

The load-bearing point sits in section 25yod-dalet, the part that makes the rest stick. The fitness duty (section 25vav) cannot be contracted out of at all. The other core clauses (the deposit cap, the barred charges, the repair deadlines) can be changed only in the tenant’s favor. So if your lease says the landlord owes nothing for repairs, or that you must hand over six months of deposit, that wording is void to the extent it gives you less than the law. The contract can give you more. It cannot give you less.

The five protections this law gives you

  • A home fit to live in on day one (section 25vav), measured against a short fixed list.
  • A capped deposit (section 25yod): the lower of one-third of the whole-term rent or three months’ rent.
  • Charges the landlord must swallow (section 25tet): building insurance, buying or upgrading fixed equipment, and a broker the landlord hired.
  • Repair deadlines (section 25het): a reasonable time, no later than 30 days for an ordinary covered fault or 3 days for an urgent one, counted from the landlord’s receipt of your demand.
  • Real remedies when the landlord ignores all of the above, enforced in court (usually small claims), not by any rent regulator.

Section 25vav: the apartment must be fit to live in

The landlord must hand over a dwelling fit for residence. This is the one duty that cannot be waived even by agreement. “Fit” is not a vibe; the law’s First Appendix lists the conditions that make a home unfit, and any single one is enough. A dwelling is not fit for residence if it has any of the following:

  • no drainage system;
  • no electrical or lighting system;
  • no ventilation and natural-light openings, with doors and windows to close those openings;
  • no drinking-water supply;
  • no partition (a wall) between the toilet and the rest of the dwelling;
  • an unreasonable risk to the tenant’s safety or health.

Delivery of a dwelling that fails the statutory fitness standard is a breach. Cancellation must follow the applicable breach-and-notice rules; it is not an unrestricted right to leave at any time without notice. This is a delivery standard, not a luxury standard: it sets the floor, not the finish. Worn paint or a dated kitchen does not breach it. No working electricity does. Check the place against this exact list during your apartment viewing and again on the day you get the keys.

Section 25yod: the cap on your deposit and guarantees

This is the clause landlords most often overstep. Your total cash-type security is capped at the lower of two numbers:

  • one-third of the total rent for the whole lease term, or
  • three months’ rent.

“The lower of” does the work. Run both and take the smaller. There is a clean rule of thumb hiding inside the math: for a lease with an unchanged monthly rent, the three-month amount is the lower figure from nine months onward; below nine months, the one-third figure is lower. At exactly nine months they are equal. So on the standard 12-month lease, your cap is simply three months’ rent. Ignore anyone who tells you the limit is six months; that is wrong and not in the statute.

The cap applies to the combined value of security that requires expenditure by the tenant, including cash and a bank guarantee. A paid guarantee product should be assessed on that basis. A security cheque or personal guarantor’s signature generally does not itself require that expenditure, so the cap does not automatically limit those instruments; the statutory rules on using security still matter. See post-dated and security checks and guarantors (arevim).

The landlord may use security only for the statutory grounds: unpaid rent, qualifying unpaid ongoing charges, repair costs for damage the tenant must repair, or failure to vacate. The recoverable amount depends on the ground and the contract where the law allows it. The landlord must give reasonable advance notice and a reasonable opportunity to remedy the problem.

Figure 1: what the cap allows versus a typical over-ask

The math below runs both halves of the cap, the lower of (rent x months) / 3 and rent x 3, against the CBS direct-collection national average rent of NIS 4,879 per month (Q2 2025, all-rooms). Treat the rows as worked examples on a real average rent rather than a fixed schedule; swap in your own rent and term to get your number.

Lease One-third of total Three months Legal cap (the lower)
12 months at NIS 4,879 NIS 19,516 NIS 14,637 NIS 14,637
6 months at NIS 4,879 NIS 9,758 NIS 14,637 NIS 9,758
12 months at NIS 7,155 (Tel Aviv average) NIS 28,620 NIS 21,465 NIS 21,465

Now the over-ask. A landlord on a 12-month lease at the national average who demands five months of deposit is asking for 5 x 4,879 = NIS 24,395. The legal cap is NIS 14,637. That demand is NIS 9,758 over the limit, and the excess is unenforceable. You can refuse the overage and point to section 25yod. For the deeper deposit mechanics and how to get it back, see the deposit and guarantees guide.

Section 25tet: costs the landlord cannot push onto you

Start with what you do owe, because this is where landlords misread the law in their own favor. Under section 25tet you lawfully bear the rent, the municipal tax (the law does not stop a landlord passing on arnona; the occupying tenant normally owes it), the services you consume (water, electricity, gas, heating), and ongoing maintenance and the building committee (vaad bayit) fee. None of that is barred.

What the landlord may not charge you:

  • Buying or upgrading fixed systems and equipment that serve the apartment (for example installing a new water heater or replacing the air-conditioning unit), unless it is a special adaptation or improvement you yourself asked for;
  • Building (structure) insurance premiums, meaning insurance on the building itself; this is separate from your own contents insurance, which is yours to choose;
  • The landlord’s own obligations to third parties, and the law names one outright: a broker’s fee where the broker acted for the landlord.

The landlord’s own brokerage debt cannot be shifted to a protected tenant. A tenant’s separate, valid engagement of a broker is a different question: the agreed fee, written order and statutory entitlement conditions matter. There is no general statutory rule limiting the tenant’s own fee to one half. The broker fee page explains the distinction.

Figure 2: a tally of charges the law bars, in shekels

Here is an illustrative cost comparison on one lease. The broker example assumes a landlord-side fee agreed at one month’s rent plus 18% VAT; the law does not prescribe a one-month fee. The insurance and equipment amounts are budgeting examples, not verified market averages. Use the actual agreement and quotes for your tenancy.

Charge a landlord sometimes tries to pass on Amount Barred by
Fee for the landlord’s own broker (1 month rent + 18% VAT) NIS 5,757 section 25tet
Building (structure) insurance, annual (illustrative) about NIS 1,200 section 25tet
Share of a new water heater on a fixed system (illustrative) about NIS 1,500 section 25tet
Total a landlord cannot lawfully bill you about NIS 8,500

Under the stated assumptions, the broker calculation rounds to NIS 5,757. Together with the two illustrative costs, the total is about NIS 8,500. These examples illustrate landlord-side charges that cannot be transferred under section 25tet; they are not a national price schedule.

Section 25het: the 30-day rule (and the 3-day rule)

The repair deadlines are the heart of these protections. Once you tell the landlord about a fault, the law starts a clock:

  • Ordinary fault: the landlord must fix it at the landlord’s expense within a reasonable time and no later than 30 days from your demand.
  • Urgent fault (one that stops you living there reasonably, like no water or no working toilet): within a reasonable time and no later than 3 days.

Two things make or break this. First, the clock runs from your demand, so put the demand in writing and date it; “reasonable time” can be shorter than the maximum, but the maximum is hard. Second, not everything is the landlord’s job. You are responsible for defects caused by your unreasonable use. The landlord’s statutory duty covers other defects that are not minor; responsibility for genuinely minor tasks also depends on the agreement. The dividing line between the two, with worked examples, lives on the who pays for repairs page, which this clause anchors.

Count from the landlord’s receipt of the demand and assess the urgency of the defect. The 30-day and 3-day periods are outer limits; a reasonable repair time can be shorter. Keep the demand, delivery evidence and repair records together.

When the landlord ignores the law: your remedies

Lead with the cheapest, lowest-risk move and escalate only if it fails.

  • Repair and seek reimbursement. If the landlord fails to repair as required, section 9 permits reasonable repair costs to be recovered after notice of your intention to repair. Where the repair is too urgent to await the landlord, the law provides an exception. Keep receipts and document any rent set-off carefully.
  • Cut the rent. You can reduce the rent in proportion to the drop in the home’s rental value caused by the unfixed fault. A fault that makes one room unusable justifies a bigger cut than a slow-draining sink.
  • Cancel for a real breach. Permitted for a genuine, material breach after proper notice, but risky: an unjustified cancellation is itself a breach and can cost you your deposit, so do not walk out on a small problem.
  • Sue for damages under the Contracts (Remedies for Breach of Contract) Law, 5731-1970, for losses such as wrongly imposed charges, lost use, or relocation costs.

A private landlord–tenant claim is generally pursued in the civil courts. An eligible money claim can go to small claims court, whose ceiling is NIS 39,900 from 1 January 2026; the filing fee is 1%, with a NIS 50 minimum, and legal representation ordinarily requires permission. The right venue depends on the parties and relief requested. Consumer complaints involving a business or broker may raise separate issues. See the deposit not returned page for a deposit dispute.

Before filing, send a dated demand letter describing the fault or disputed charge, the remedy sought and a reasonable response deadline. Keep a copy and proof of delivery; these help establish the facts and what the landlord knew.

Four rental terms used on this page

  • Fair Rental Law: the 2017 residential-lease chapter (sections 25alef to 25tet-vav) of the Rental and Loan Law, 5731-1971.
  • Fit for residence (dira reuya): the minimum delivery standard in section 25vav, measured by the First Appendix list.
  • Cogent (non-waivable) clause: a rule a contract cannot reduce; here it can only be changed in the tenant’s favor (section 25yod-dalet).
  • Demand letter (mihtav hatra’a): a written record of your request and deadline. Receipt of the repair demand starts the statutory clock; writing helps prove it.

Check these five points against your lease

  • Check the residential chapter’s exceptions, including lease options, long-term termination rights, the indexed rent ceiling and any special family-lease rules.
  • You have read the actual deposit number against the cap: on a 12-month lease, three months is the limit.
  • Record your repair demand in writing and keep evidence of when the landlord received it, even if you also call.
  • You have a copy of every demand and the landlord’s reply (or silence).
  • A clause that looks worse than the law is likely void; the law beats the lease wherever it gives you more.

Questions tenants ask about the law

My lease says I waived these rights. Is that valid?

No, not where it makes you worse off. The fitness duty cannot be waived at all, and the deposit cap, the barred charges, and the repair deadlines can be changed only in your favor (section 25yod-dalet). A clause that strips them is void to that extent.

The landlord wants four or five months of deposit. Do I have to pay it?

Not the part above the cap. On a 12-month lease the cap is three months’ rent. At the national average rent, a five-month demand runs NIS 9,758 over the legal limit, and the excess is unenforceable.

Does the law stop the landlord from charging me arnona?

No. Arnona, utilities, and the building committee fee are lawfully the tenant’s. The barred-charges clause targets landlord-side costs like building insurance and the landlord’s own broker, not the municipal tax.

What exactly is an “urgent” fault that gets the 3-day deadline?

One that prevents reasonable living, such as no water, no electricity, or no working toilet. Ordinary faults that are inconvenient but livable get the 30-day deadline.

Can I just stop paying rent until it is fixed?

Be careful. The clean route is to fix-and-deduct after notice, or to reduce the rent in proportion to the lost value, with records. Simply withholding the whole rent can itself be a breach.

Where do I complain if the landlord refuses everything?

For an eligible money claim, consider small claims court after documenting your demand. Its ceiling is NIS 39,900 from 1 January 2026, and parties normally represent themselves. Other relief or business-related complaints can require a different route.

Sources

Send a dated demand letter first

Write one dated demand: name the breach (an over-cap deposit, a barred charge, or an unfixed fault), cite the section, and request repair within a reasonable time, no later than 30 days or 3 days for an urgent covered fault. Send it, keep proof, and if the deadline passes, take it to small claims through the deposit not returned route. New to the whole process? Start at the how to rent in Israel sub-hub or browse the full renting in Israel hub.